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SELECTIONS FROM 

THE LETTERS AND SPEECHES 

OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

LEON C. PRINCE 

MEMBER OF THE PENNSYLVANIA BAR AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY 

AND ECONOMICS IN DICKINSON COLLEGE 

AUTHOR OF "A BIRd's-EYE VIEW OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

AND 

LEWIS H. CHRISMAN 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN GERMAN WALLACE COLLEGE 



D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 






Copyright, 1912, 
By D. C. Heath & Co. 



I J 2 



CI.A.328076 



PREFACE 



In preparing this text the editors have kept one aim con- 
stantly in mind: to produce a workable secondary school 
edition of Lincoln's principal letters and speeches. They 
have endeavored to present these selections in such a manner 
that the pupil can derive a just and clear conception of 
Abraham Lincoln's political philosophy. 

It was likewise the intention of the editors so to arrange 
the material as to give the teacher the opportunity to be an 
inspirational force rather than a mere mechanical drillmaster. 
A live teacher can without difficulty correlate this work with 
courses in history and debating, or he can independently 
make it the vehicle of instruction in those branches of study 
and intellectual exercise. 

The name of those to whom the editors are indebted in the 
preparation of their brief work is legion. The voluminous 
literature of the subject makes this inevitable. Special and 
grateful acknowledgment is offered to Colonel Henry 
Watterson and his publishers, Messrs. Duffield & Co., to 
Messrs. Eaton & Mains, and the North American Review 
for their gracious courtesy. 

The final authority relied upon by the editors is James 
Ford Rhodes's monumental ''History of the United States 
(1850-1877)." 



CONTENTS 



Speech Delivered at Peoria, III., Oct. 16, 1854 . . 
Speech Delivered at Springfield, III., June 16, 1858 
Speech Delivered at Columbus, O., Sept. 16, 1859 . 
Address Delivered at Cooper Institute, Feb. 27, 1860 
Farewell Address at Springfield, III., Feb. 11, 1881 
Address in Independence Hall, Feb. 22, 1861 
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 . 
Letter to W. H. Seward, April 1, 1861 . • 
Letter to General McClellan, Feb. 3, 1862 

Letter to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1882 . 

Letter to General Hooker, Jan. 23, 1863 . 

Address at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863 . . 

Letter to General Grant, April 30, 1834 . 

Letter to Mrs. Btxby, Nov. 21, 1834 . . 

Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 . 

Last Public Address, April 11, 1865 . . . 

Tribute of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll . . 

Tribute of Hon. Henry Watterson ... . 

Tribute of Bishop Charles H. Fowler . . 



Notes 



page 
1 
14 
30 
38 
69 
72 
75 
CO 
93 
95 
98 
100 
104 
106 
108 
113 
121 
127 
134 



141 



SELECTIONS FROM 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

LINCOLN'S PEORIA SPEECH 

Introduction 

In the days of their young manhood Lincoln and Douglas 
were associated in the common life of a pioneer commumty. 
But in the race for political preferment the little New Eng- 
lander made far quicker progress than the uncouth and back- 
ward Kentuckian. In 1850 Stephen A. Douglas then 
United States Senator from Illinois, was next to Webster 
and Clay the most influential man in Congress. Exchanging 
the environment of New England at an early age for what 
was then the western frontier, he was elected to the lilmois 
legislature at the age of twenty-three; thence he was sent 
to the national House of Representatives, and when thirty- 
three years old was made United States Senator. 

James Ford Rhodes says, "Douglas's first political speech 
gained him the title of the 'Little Giant'; the name was 
intended to imply the union of small physical with great 
intellectual stature. Yet he was not a student of oooks 
although a close observer of man. He lacked refinement ot 
manner; was careless of his personal appearance and had 
none of the art and grace that go to make up the cultivated 
orator. John Quincv Adams was shocked at his appearance 
in the House, where, as the celebrated diary records m 
making a speech he raved, roared, and lashed himself into a 
heat with convulsed face and frantic gesticulation. In tne 
midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped 



2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

off and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and 
had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugihst.' But Douglas 
took on quickly the character of his surroundings and in 
Washington society he soon learned the ease of a gentleman 
and acquired the bearing of a man of the world." 

He had to a high degree the power of attracting men. 
Few American political leaders have possessed such a large 
and devoted personal following. In spite of Webster's 
''seventh of March speech," which alienated so many of the 
illustrious Massachusetts statesman's admirers, Clay would 
never have succeeded in passing the Compromise of 1850 
had it not been for the effective support and championship 
of the shrewd, resourceful, and potent senator from Illinois. 

With the triumph of the Compromise of 1850 Douglas 
declared that he had made his last speech on the slavery 
question. But to the surprise of the whole country, on 
January 4, 1854, Douglas presented to the Senate his famous 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, the salient feature of which was the 
section providing ''that the territory of Nebraska or any 
portion of the same, when admitted as states 'shall be re- 
ceived into the Union with or without slavery as their Con- 
stitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.'" 
The bill passed both houses and was signed by the President. 
Thus the Missouri Compromise, which for more than thirty 
years had by the deliberate agreement of North and South 
excluded slavery from the Louisiana purchase, was repealed, 
and the agitation reopened with renewed furJ^ 

There is little reason to doubt that the desire of Douglas 
to secure the support of the South for his presidential aspira- 
tions was responsible for his reopening a question charged 
with such inflammatory and war-provoking possibilities. 
"Prince John" Van Buren, accomplished son of the ex- 
president, and one of New York's most astute politicians, 
said, "Could anything but a desire to buy the South at the 
presidential shambles dictate such an outrage?" 

The law of compensation is universal in its operation; 
although Douglas by this manoeuvre temporarily became 
the hero and favorite of the South, his doctrine of "squatter 



THE PEORIA SPEECH S 

sovereignty" had the opposite effect in the North. Many 
of his constituents had become highly dissatisfied with he 
way in which Douglas was representing their state. Realiz- 
ing that it was time to repair his tumbling political fences 
he returned to Illinois and soon afterward delivered a speech 
at the State Fair in Springfield. This speech was answered 
by Lincoln; in his rebuttal Douglas appeared to decidedly 
inferior advantage. ^ . , . 

Twelve days later the rival statesmen met again. Lin- 
coln had agreed to speak in Peoria, Illinois on Monday, the 
sixteenth of October. Thither Douglas followed him as if 
determined to see his own annihilation. Douglas spoke for 
three hours in the afternoon, and Lmcoln followed m the 
evening, speaking three hours. The result was the same as 
at Springfield. Lincoln's speech was materially different 
but it was, as subsequently wi'itten out by him, more skilful 
and elaborate in its treatment of the great question. . . . 
It was, however, distinguished above all others for its mani- 
festation of a full and exhaustive knowledge of the slavery 
question and of all that had at that time grown out of it. 
Probably no other man then living could have produced so 
complete and comprehensive a view of the subject presented 
both as to itself and its collateral branches. 

''At the close of this speech Douglas said to Lmcoln: 
'You understand this question of prohibiting slavery m the 
Territories better than all the opposition in the United States 
Senate. I cannot make anything by debatmg with you. 
You, Lincoln, have, here and at Springfield, given me more 
trouble than all the opposition in the Senate combined. 

Speech Delivered at Peoria, Illinois 
October 16, 1854 

But one great argument in support of the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise is still to come. . That 
argument is ^' the sacred right of self-government. 
1 See Bishop Fowler's Lecture, pages 133-134. 



4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

It seems our distinguished Senator has found great 
difficulty in getting his antagonists, even in the Senate, 
to meet him fairly on this argument. Some poet has 
said: 

^" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." ° 

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of 
this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — 
I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and 
truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith 
in the proposition that each man should do precisely 
as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies 
at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. 
I extend the principle to communities of men as well 
as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically 
wise, as well as naturally just; politically wise in saving 
us from broils about matters which do not concern us. 
Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself 
with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws 
of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, 
— absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just 
application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should 
rather say that whether it has such application depends 
upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not 
a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter 
of self-government do just what he pleases with him. 
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a 
total destruction of self-government to say that he 
too shall not govern himself? When the white man 
governs himself, that is self-government; but when he 
governs himself, and also governs another man, that 

^Phrases marked thus:°, are commented upon in the notes. 



THE PEORIA SPEECH 5 

is more than self-government — that is despotism. 
If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith 
teaches me that " all men are created equal/' and that 
there can be no moral right in connection with one 
man's making a slave of another. 

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and 
sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying: ''The 
white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern 
themselves, but they are not good enough to govern 
a few miserable negroes." 

Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are 
and will continue to be as good as the average of people 
elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do say 
is that no man is good enough to govern another man 
without that other's consent. I say this is the leading 
principle, the sheet-anchor of Am.erican repubUcanism. 
Our Declaration of Independence says: 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all 
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inahenable rights; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent 
of the governed.^ ^ 

I have quoted so much at this time merely to show 
that, according to our ancient faith, the just powers of 
government are derived from the consent of the gov- 
erned. Now the relation of master and slave is pro tanto 
a total violation of this principle. The master not only 
governs the slave without his consent, but he governs 
him by a set of rules altogether different from those 
which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the governed 



6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

an equal voice in the government, and that, and that 
only, is self-government. 

Let it not be said I am contending for the estab- 
lishment of political and social equality between 
the whites and blacks. I have already said the con- 
trary. I am not combating the argument of necessity, 
arising from the fact that the blacks are already among 
us; but I am combating what is set up as a moral argu- 
ment for allowing them to be taken where they have 
never yet been — arguing against the extension of a bad 
thing, which, where it already exists, we must of 
necessity manage as we best can. 

In support of his application of the doctrine of self- 
government, Senator Douglas has sought to bring to 
his aid the opinions and examples of our Revolutionary 
fathers. I am glad he has done this. I love the senti- 
ments of those old-time men, and shall be most happy 
to abide by their opinions. He shows us that when it 
was in contemplation for the colonies to break off from 
Great Britain, and set up a new government for them- 
selves, several of the States instructed their delegates 
to go for the measure, provided each State should be 
allowed to regulate its domestic concerns in its own way. 
I do not quote; but this in substance. This was right; 
I see nothing objectionable in it. I also think it proba- 
ble that it had some reference to the* existence of 
slavery among them. I will not deny that it had. But 
had it any reference to the carrying of slavery into 
new countries? That is the question, and we will let 
the fathers themselves answer it. 

This same generation of men, and mostly the same 
individuals of the generation who declared this principle, 



THE PEORIA SPEECH 7 

who declared independence, who fought the war of the 
Revolution through, who afterward made the Con- 
stitution under which we still live — these same men 
passed the Ordinance of '87,° declaring that slavery 
should never go to the Northwest Territory. I have 
no doubt Judge Douglas thinks they were very incon- 
sistent in this. It is a question of discrimination be- 
tween them and him. But there is not an inch of ground 
left for his claiming that their opinions, their example, 
their authority, are on his side in the controversy. 

Again, is not Nebraska, while a Territory, a part of 
us? Do we not own the country? And if we surrender 
the control of it, do we not surrender the right of self- 
government? It is part of ourselves. If you say we 
shall not control it, because it is only part, the same is 
true of every other part; and when all the parts are 
gone, what has become of the whole? What is then 
left of us? What use for the General Government, 
when there is nothing left for it to govern? 

But you say this question should be left to the people 
of Nebraska, because they are more particularly in- 
terested. If this be the rule, you must leave it to each 
individual to say for himself whether he will have slaves. 
What better moral right have thirty-one citizens of 
Nebraska to say that the thirty-second shall not hold 
slaves than the people of the thirty-one States have to 
say that slavery shall not go into the thirty-second 
State at all? 

But if it is a sacred right for the people of Nebraska 
to take and hold slaves there, it is equally their sacred 
right to buy them where they can buy them cheapest; 
and that, undoubtedly, will be on the coast of Africa, 



8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

provided you will consent not to hang them for going 
there to buy them. You must remove this restriction, 
too, from the sacred right of self-government. I am 
avmve, you say, that taking slaves from the States to 
Nebraska does not make slaves of freemen; but the 
African slave-trader can say just as much. He does 
not catch free negroes and bring them here. He finds 
them already slaves in the hands of their black captors, 
and he honestly buys them at the rate of a red cotton 
handkerchief a head. This is very cheap, and it is a 
great abridgment of the sacred right of self-government 
to hang men for engaging in this profitable trade. 

Another important objection to this apphcation of 
the right of self-government is that it enables the first 
few to deprive the succeeding many of a free exercise 
of the right of self-government. The first few may get 
slavery in, and the subsequent many cannot easily get 
it out. How conmion is the remark now in the slave 
States, " If we were only clear of our slaves, how much 
better it would be for us." They are actually deprived 
of the privilege of governing themselves as they would, 
by the action of a very few in the beginning. The 
same thing was true of the whole nation at the time our 
Constitution was formed. 

Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new 
Territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the 
people who may go there. The whole nation is in- 
terested that the best use shall be made of these Terri- 
tories. We want them for homes of free white people. 
This they cannot be, to -any considerable extent, if 
slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States 
are places for poor white people to remove from, not 



THE PEORIA SPEECH 9 

to remove to.° New free States are the places for 
poor people to go to, and better their condition. For 
this use the nation needs these Territories. 

Still further: there are constitutional relations be- 
tween the slave and free States which are degrading 
to the latter. We are under legal obligations to catch 
and return their runaway slaves to them: a sort of 
dirty, disagreeable job, which, I believe, as a general 
rule, the slaveholders will not perform for one another. 
Then again, in the control of the government — tfie 
management of the partnership affairs — they have 
greatly the advantage of us. By the Constitution each 
State has two senators, each has a number of represen- 
tatives in proportion to the number of its people, and 
each has a number of presidential electors equal to the 
whole number of its senators and representatives to- 
gether. But in ascertaining the number of the people 
for this purpose, five slaves are counted as being 
equal to three whites." The slaves do not vote; they 
are only counted and so used as to swell the influence 
of the white people's votes. The practical effect of 
this is more aptly shown by a comparision of the 
States of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina 
has six representatives, and so has Maine; South Caro- 
lina has eight presidential electors, and so has Maine. 
This is precise equality so far; and of course they are 
equal in senators, each having two. Thus in the control 
of the government the two States are equals precisely. 
But how are they in the number of their white people? 
Maine has 581,813, while South Carolina has 274,507; 
Maine has twice as many as South Carolina, and 32,679 
over. Thus, each white man in South Carolina is 



10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

more than the double of any man in Maine. This is 
all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has 
384,984 slaves. The South Carolinian has precisely the 
same advantage over the white man in every other 
free State as well as in Maine. He is more than the 
double of any one of us in this crowd. The same advan- 
tage, but not to the same extent, is held by all the citizens 
of the slave States over those of the free; and it is 
an absolute truth, without an exception, that there is 
no voter in any slave State but who has more legal 
power in the government than any voter in any free 
State. There is no instance of exact equality; and the 
disadvantage is against us the Vv^hole chapter through. 
This principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave States 
in the present Congress twenty additional representa- 
tives, being seven more than the whole majority by 
which they passed the Nebraska Bill. 

Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not men- 
tion it to complain of it, in so far as it is already settled. 
It is in the Constitution, and I do not for that cause, 
or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or 
disregard the Constitution. I stand to it, fairly, fully, 
and firmly. 

But when I am told I must leave it altogether to 
other people to say whether new partners are to be 
bred up and brought into the firm, on the same de- 
grading terms against me, I respectfully demur. I 
insist that whether I shall be a whole man, or only the 
half of one, in comparison with others, is a question in 
which I am somewhat concerned, and one which no 
other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me. 
If I am wrong in this — if it really be a sacred right of 



THE PEORIA SPEECH 11 

self-government in the man who shall go to Nebraska 
to decide whether he will be the equal of me or the double 
of me, then, after he shall have exercised that right, 
and thereby shall have reduced me to a still sm^aller 
fraction of a man than I already am, I should like for 
some gentleman, deeply skilled in the mysteries of 
sacred rights, to provide himself with a microscope, and 
peep about, and find out, if he can, what has become of 
my sacred rights. They will surely be too small for 
detection with the naked eye. 

Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is 
the duty of the whole people to never intrust to any 
hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and 
perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And 
if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery 
endangers them more than any or all other causes, how 
recreant to themselves if they submit the question, and 
with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of 
men bent only on self-interest. If this question of 
slavery extension were an insignificant one — one 
having no power to do harm — it might be shuffled 
aside in this way; and being, as it is, the great Behe- 
moth of danger, ° shall the strong grip of the nation be 
loosened upon him, to intrust him to the hands of such 
feeble keepers? 

I have done with this mighty argument of selt- 
government. Go, sacred thing! Go in peace. 

But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving meas- 
ure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much as I 
hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it 
rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would 
consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

when I go to Union-saving, I must believe, at least, 
that the means I employ have some adaptation to the 
end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation. 

" It hath no rehsh of salvation in it " ° 

It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing 
which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon 
us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was looking 
to the forming of new bonds of union, and a long course 
of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In 
the whole range of possibihty, there scarcely appears 
to me to have been anything out of which the slavery 
agitation could have been revived, except the very 
project of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every 
inch of territory we owned already had a definite 
settlement of the slavery question, by which all parties 
were pledged to abide. Indeed, there was no unin- 
habited country on the continent which we could ac- 
quire, if we except some extreme northern regions which 
are wholly out of the question. 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could scarcely have invented a way of again setting 
us by the ears but by turning back and destroying the 
peace measures of the past. The counsels of that 
Genius seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Compro- 
mise was repealed; and here we are in the midst of a 
new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never 
seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those 
who resist the measure, or those who causelessly brought 
it forward and pressed it through, having reason to 
know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be so 
resisted? It could not but be expected by its author 



THE PEORIA SPEECH 13 

that it would be looked upon as a measure for the 
extension of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of 
faith. 

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the 
naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this 
aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery 
is founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposi- 
tion to it in his love of justice. These principles are 
an eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision 
so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks 
and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. 
Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compro- 
mises, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal 
all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. 
It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery 
extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his 
heart his mouth will continue to speak. 



• LINCOLN'S SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 

Introduction 

Lincoln delivered his famous "Divided House Speech" 
on June 16, 1858, at Springfield, Illinois, to the Repubhcan 
State Convention which had named him as its candidate for 
United States Senator. His Democratic opponent was 
Stephen A. Douglas, who at that time was by far the more 
widely known of the two candidates. Although Lincoln 
had served one term in Congress and had been considered 
as a possible candidate for the vice-presidency by the con- 
vention which nominated Fremont, his reputation was con- 
fined to his own state. On the other hand, Douglas had 
for years been regarded as a power in national politics: he 
had proved himself to be a skilful leader, a ready debater, 
and a superb fighter. He realized, however, that in Lincoln 
he had a foeman worthy of his steel. As soon as he heard 
that Lincoln was to be his opponent he said, "I shall have 
my hands full. He is the strong man of his party — full 
of wit, facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with his 
droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he 
is shrewd, and if I beat him my victory will be hardly won." 

From the very first the campaign was more than a mere 
office-seeking contest: it was a battle between two great 
principles. The Springfield speech is a clear, succinct state- 
ment of the dominating issue of the day as Lincoln saw it. 

Like Banquo's ghost, the slavery question would not down. 
At the time of the Lincoln-Douglas senatorial campaign it 
was the one overshadowing issue. In 1854 Congress had 
passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which had been introduced 
by Douglas. There was little doubt that in Nebraska, the 
northern territory, the antislavery element would predomi- 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 15 

nate; but both factions hoped to secure the southern terri- 
tory,' called Kansas. Armed Missourians swept across the 
border to win it for the South; aggressive New Englanders, 
equipped with Sharp rifles, swarmed in for the purpose of 
making it free. Kansas was soon the scene of bloody con- 
flicts. ''Sy intimidation and force a proslavery legislature 
was elected, which passed a code of laws making it a crime 
to assert that ^'persons had not the right to hold slaves." To 
protect themselves the antislavery people met at Topeka 
and attempted to set up a free state government. On 
account of the riotous condition of things President Pierce 
ordered the United States troops to disperse the Topeka 
legislature. 

This was the situation at the time of the presidential 
election of 1856. On account of the unpopularity of the 
Kansas-Nebraska measure, Douglas failed to secure the 
Democratic nomination, which went to James Buchanan, 
who easily defeated his RepubUcan opponent, John C. 
Fremont. Four days after the inauguration of the new 
President, Chief Justice Taney, a majority of the Supreme 
Court concurring, decided in the famous Dred Scott case 
that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature had the 
constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory. Doug- 
las approved of this decision, though it was inconsistent with 
his own theory of "squatter sovereignty," which conceded 
to the citizens of a territory the right to do as they pleased 
with regard to slavery. 

In 1857 a convention met at Lecompton to frame a state 
constitution for Kansas. The free state men refused to 
attend either the convention or the later election held for 
the purpose of voting on the constitution which the conven- 
tion had proposed. Nevertheless, the Buchanan adminis- 
tration tried to force through Congress a measure admitting 
Kansas to statehood under the Lecompton constitution. 
Owing to the strenuous opposition of Douglas the scheme 
failed, but Douglas incurred the enmity of the Buchanan 
administration. Hence in his campaign for re-election he 
had to combat not only the RepubUcans but a powerful 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

faction in his own party. However, in spite of this handicap 
he entered the contest under very favorable conditions. He 
was a strong and resourceful politician, and he enjoyed by 
reason of his recent victory over the administration a pres- 
tige possessed at that time by no other American statesman. 

About a month after Lincoln's speech at Springfield Douglas 
returned to his home in Chicago, w^here he was given a 
''magnificent and enthusiastic" reception. In the course 
of his remarks he vigorously attacked the position taken by 
Lincoln at Springfield. A few days later Lincoln challenged 
him to a series of seven debates, which Douglas after some 
hesitation accepted, and the fight began in earnest. 

Without doubt this senatorial campaign in Illinois in 1858 
was one of the most exciting and momentous battles ever 
fought in the arena of American politics. 

"The setting of the spectacle had the picturesqueness of 
the times and the region. The people gathered in vast 
multitudes to the number of ten thousand, even of twenty 
thousand, at the places named for the speech-making. They 
came in their wagons, bringing provisions, and making camps 
in the groves and fields. There were bonfires and music, 
parading and drinking. He was a singular man in Illinois 
who was not present at one of these encounters." ("Abra- 
ham Lincoln," John Morse, vol. i, page 12L) 

The Republican party elected its state ticket, but Douglas 
received a majority of eight votes in the legislature. But 
though Douglas in these debates had won the success of the 
hour, Lincoln had insured for himself a larger victory in 1860. 

"Since 'nothing succeeds like success,' it was for the most 
part supposed in the East that as Douglas had won the prize, 
he had overpowered his antagonist in debate. This remained 
the prevalent opinion until in 1860 the del^ates were published 
in book form. Since then the matured judgment is that in 
the dialectic contest Lincoln got the better of Douglas. 
No one would now undertake to affirm the contrary; but 
Lincoln had an immense advantage in having the just cause 
and the one to which public sentiment was tending." (J. F. 
Rhodes, "History of the United States," vol. ii, page 343.) 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 17 

So the Springfield speech was really the beginning of the 
Lincoln-Douglas debates; in it Lincoln laid down the plat- 
form which he defended throughout the campaign. It was 
the most carefully prepared speech that he ever made. 
The extraordinary excitement which it created was due to 
the radicalism voiced in the exordium. Up to that time no 
American statesman had dared to express himscK so frankly 
upon such questions. " Before delivering his speech he in- 
vited a dozen or so of his friends over to the library of the 
state house, where he read and submitted it to them. After 
the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some con- 
demned, and not one endorsed it. One man, more forcible 
than elegant, characterized it as a 'fool utterance' ; another 
said the doctrine was 'ahead of its time'; and still another 
contended that it would drive away a good many voters 
fresh from the Democratic ranks. Each man attacked 
it in his criticism. I was the last to respond. Although 
the doctrine announced was rather rank, yet it suited my 
views, and I said, ' Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and 
it will make you President.' At the time I hardly realized 
the force of my prophecy. Having patiently hstened to 
these various criticisms from his friends — all of which with 
a single exception were adverse — he rose from his chair, 
and after ahuding to the careful study and intense thought 
he had given the question, he answered all their objections 
substantially as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been re- 
tarded long enough. The time has come when these senti- 
ments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should 
go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked 
to the truth — let me die in the advocacy of what is just 
and right.' The next day the speech was delivered just as 
we had heard it read. Up to this time Seward had held 
sway over the North by his 'higher-law' sentiments, but the 
'house-divided-against-itself ' speech by Lincoln in my opin- 
ion drove the nail into Seward's political cofhn." ("Abra- 
ham Lincoln," Herndon and Weik, vol. ii, pp. 68-69.) 

Speaking of this address, Lincoln himself said, ''If I had 

to draw a pen across my record and erase my whole life from 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

remembrance, and I had one choice allowed me that I might 
save from the wreck, I would choose that speech and leave 
it to the world just as it is." 

The Springfield speech was of great influence in making 
Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. 

Speech Delivered at SpringfieLd, Illinois, at 

THE Republican State Convention ^ 

June 16, 1858 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: If we 
could first know where we are, and whither we are tend- 
ing, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. 
We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not 
ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, 
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached 
and passed. '^ A house divided ° against itself cannot 
stand." I believe this government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its 
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as 
well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 
^ This convention nominated Mr. Lincoln for U. S. Senator. 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 19 

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that 
now almost complete legal combination — piece of 
machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska 
doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. ° Let him con- 
sider not only what work the machinery is adapted to 
do, and how well adapted; .but also let him study the 
history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or 
rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design 
and concert of action among its chief architects, from 
the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded ° from 
more than half the States by State constitutions, and 
from most of the national territory by congressional 
prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle 
which ended in repealing that congressional prohibi- 
tion. This opened all the national territory ° to slavery, 
and was the first point gained. 

But, so far. Congress only had acted; and an indorse- 
ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable 
to save the point already gained and give chance for 
more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been 
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argu- 
ment of '^squatter sovereignty," otherwise called 
'^ sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, 
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any gov- 
ernment, was so perverted in this attempted use of it 
as to amount to just this: That if any one man choose 
to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to ob- 
ject. That argument was incorporated into the Ne- 
braska bill itself, in the language which follows: " It 
being the true intent and meaning of this act not to 



20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to ex- 
clude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- 
stitution of the United States." Then opened the roar 
of loose declamation in favor of '^ squatter sovereignty" 
and ''sacred right of self-government," ^' But, " said 
opposition members, '' let us amend the bill so as to 
expressly declare that the people of the Territory may 
exclude slavery." '' Not we," said the friends of the 
measure; and down they voted the amendment. ° 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Con- 
gress, a law ca^se involving the question of a negro's 
freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily 
taken him first into a free State and then into a Ter- 
ritory covered by the congressional prohibition, and 
held him as a slave for a long tim^e in each, was passing 
through the United States Circuit Court for the Dis- 
trict of ]\Iissouri; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit 
were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 
1854. The negro's name was Dred Scott, which 
name now designates the decision finally made in 
the case. Before the then next presidential election, 
the law case came to and was argued in the Supreme 
Court of the United States; but the decision of it was 
deferred until after the election. Still, before the elec- 
tion. Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, re- 
quested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to 
state his opinion whether the people of a Territory can 
constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and 
the latter answered: '' That is a question for the 
Supreme Court." 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 21 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected," and 
the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the 
second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell 
short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred 
thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelm- 
ingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing Presi- 
dent, in his last annual message, ° as impressively as 
possible echoed back upon the people the weight and 
authority of the indorsement ! The Supreme Court met 
again; did not announce their decision, but ordered 
a reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and 
still no decision of the court; but the incoming Presi- 
dent in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the 
people to abide by the forthcoming decision, what- 
ever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the 
decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an 
early occasion to make a speech at this capital indors- 
ing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing 
all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the 
early occasion of the Silliman letter ° to indorse and 
strongly construe that decision, and to express his 
astonishment that any different view had ever been 
entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the Presi- 
dent and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere 
question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution ° 
was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people 
of Kansas; and in that quarrel, the latter declares that 
all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he 
cares not whether slavery l)c voted down or voted up. 
I do not understand his declaration that he cares not 



22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be in- 
tended by him other than as an apt definition of the 
pohcy he Avould impress upon the pubUc mind — the 
principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, 
and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he 
cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, 
well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred 
left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred 
Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " squatted out of 
existence, tumbled do^^Ti like temporary scaffolding, — 
Uke the mold at the foundry, served through one 
blast, and fell back into loose sand, — helped to carry 
an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late 
joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecomp- 
ton constitution involves nothing of the original Ne- 
braska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — 
the right of a people to make their own constitution — 
upon which he and the Repubhcans have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in con- 
nection with Senator Douglas's " care not " pohcy, con- 
stitute the piece of machinery in its present state of 
advancement. This was the third point gained. The 
working points of that machinery are: 

(1) That no negro slave, imported as such from 
Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a 
citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in 
the Constitution of the United States. This point is 
made in order to deprive the negro in every possible 
event of the benefit of that provision of the United 
States Constitution which declares that " the citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immmiities of citizens in the several States." 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 23 



• 



(2) That " subject to the Constitution of the 
United States," neither Congress nor a territorial legis- 
lature can exclude slavery from any United States 
Territory. This point is made in order that individual 
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without 
danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance 
the chances of permanency to the institution through 
all the future. 

(3) That whether the holding a negro in actual 
slavery in a free State makes him free as against the 
holder, the United States courts will not decide, but 
will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State 
the negro may be forced into by the master. This point 
is made not to be pressed immediately, but, if ac- 
quiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the 
people at an election, then to sustain the logical con- 
clusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully 
do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every 
other master may lawfully do with any other one or 
one thousand slaves in Illinois or in any other free 
State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand-in-hand with 
it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to 
educate and mold pubhc opinion, at least Northern 
public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted 
down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now 
are, and partially, also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back 
and run the mind over the string of historical facts al- 
ready stated. Several things will now appear less dark 
and mysterious than they did when they were trans- 
piring. The people were to be left " perfectly free," 



24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

'' subject only to the Constitution." What the Con- 
stitution had to do with it outsiders could not then see. 
Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for 
the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and de- 
clare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no 
freedom at all. Why was the amendment expressly 
declaring the right of the people voted do^\TL? Plainly 
enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the 
niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court 
decision held up? Why even a senator's mdividual 
opinion withheld till after the presidential election? 
Plainly enough now, the speaking out then would have 
damaged the ^' perfectly free " argument upon which 
the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing Presi- 
dent's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay 
of a reargument? Why the incoming President's ad- 
vance exhortation in favor of the decision? These 
things look like the cautious patting and petting of 
a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it 
is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why 
the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the 
President and others? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these adapta- 
tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a 
lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we 
know have been gotten out at different times and places 
and by different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, 
and James,° for instance, — and we see those tim- 
bers joined together, and see they exactly make the 
frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices 
exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of 
the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 25 

places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omit- 
ting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, 
we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared 
yet to bring such piece in — in such a case we find it im- 
possible not to beheve that Stephen and Franklin and 
Roger and James all understood one another from the 
beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or 
draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska 
bill, the people of a State as well as Territory were to be 
left ''perfectly free," ''subject only to the Constitution." 
Why mention a State? They were legislating for Terri- 
tories, and not for or about States. Certainly the 
people of a State are and ought to be subject to the 
Constitution of the United States; but why is mention 
of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why 
are the people of a Territory and the people of a State 
therein lumped together, and their relation to the 
Constitution therein treated as being precisely the 
same? While the opinion of the court by Chief Jus- 
tice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate 
opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly de- 
clare that the Constitution of the United States neither 
permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude 
slavery from any United States Territory, they all 
omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution 
permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. 
Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite 
sure, if McLean or Curtis ° had sought to get into the 
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people 
of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just 
as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in 



26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

behalf of the people of a Territory, mto the Nebraska 
bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not 
have been voted down in the one case as it had been 
in the other? The nearest approach to the point of 
declaring the power of a State over slavery is made by 
Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using 
the precise idea, and almost the language too, of the 
Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is : 
'^ Except in cases where the power is restrained by the 
Constitution of the United States, the law of the State 
is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris- 
diction." In what cases the power of the State is so 
restrained by the United States Constitution is left -an 
open question, precisely as the same question as to the 
restraint on the power of the Territories was left open 
in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and 
we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere 
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision 
declaring that the Constitution of the United States 
does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its 
limits. And this may especially be expected if the 
doctrine of '^ care not whether slavery be voted do^Yn. or 
voted up " shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently 
to give promise that such a decision can be maintained 
when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, 
such decision is probably coming, and will soon be 
upon us, unless the power of the present political dy- 
nasty shall be met and overthrov-n. We shall lie 
down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri 
arc on the verge of making their State free, and we 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 27 

shall awake to the reaUty instead that the Supreme 
Court has made Ilhnois a slave State. To meet and 
overthrow the power of that dynasty is the w^ork now 
before all those who would prevent that consummation. 
That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? 

There are those who denounce us openly to their 
own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator 
Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which 
to effect that object. They wish us to infer all from 
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present 
head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted 
with us on a single point upon which he and we have 
never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, 
and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this 
be granted. But " a living dog is better than a dead 
Hon." ° Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, 
is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he op- 
pose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything 
about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " pub- 
lic heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 
Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent 
will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave 
trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that 
trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he 
really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For 
years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white 
men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can 
he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy 
them where they can be bought cheapest? And un- 
questionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa 
than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to re- 
duce the whole ciucstion of slavery to one of a mere 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the 
foreign slave trade? How can he refuse that trade in 
that ''property" shall be ''perfectly free," unless he does 
it as a protection to the home production? And as the 
home producers will probably not ask the protection, 
he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that 
he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that 
he will make any particular change, of which he himself 
has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action 
upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish 
not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question 
his motives, or do aught that can be personally offen- 
sive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come 
together on principle so that our great cause may have 
assistance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- 
posed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not 
now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not 
promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands 
are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for 
the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation 
mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We 
did this under the single impulse of resistance to a com- 
mon danger, with every external circumstance against 
us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, 
we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought 
the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a 
disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we 



THE SPRINGFIELD SPEECH 29 

brave all then to falter now? — now, when that same 
enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belhgerent? The 
result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand 
firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or 
mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is 
sure to come. 



LINCOLN'S COLUMBUS SPEECH 

Introduction 

"Lincoln's more important political work of the year 
1859 was the part he took in the canvass in the state of Ohio, 
where a governor was to be chosen at the October election, 
and where the result v/ould decide not merely the present 
and local strength of the rival candidates, l3ut also to some 
extent indicate the prospects and probabilities of the presi- 
dential campaign of 1860. The Ohio Democrats had called 
Douglas into their canvass, and the Republicans, as soon as 
they learned the fact, arranged that Lincoln should come 
and answer him. There was a fitness in this, not merely 
because Lincoln's joint debates with him in Illinois in the 
previous summer were so successful, but also because Doug- 
las in nearly every speech made since then, both in his 
Southern tour and elsev/here, alluded to the Illinois campaign, 
and to Lincoln by name, especially to vvdiat he characterized 
as his political heresies. By thus everywhere making Lincoln 
and Lincoln's utterances a pubhc target, Douglas himself, 
in effect, prolonged and extended the joint debates over the 
whole Union. . . . 

"Thus Lincoln's advent in the Ohio campaign attracted 
much more than usual notice. He made but two speeches, 
one at Columbus, and one at Cincinnati, at each of which 
places Douglas had recently preceded him. Lincoln's 
addresses not only brought him large and appreciative 
audiences, but they obtained an unprecedented circulation 
in print. In the main, they reproduced and terseh^ re- 
applied the ideas and arguments developed in the senatorial 
campaign in lUinois, adding, however, searching comments 
on the newer positions and points to which Douglas had 



THE COLUMBUS SPEECH 31 

since advanced." ("Abraham Lincoln: A History," by 
Jolin G. Nicolay and John Hay.) 

Speech Delivered at Columbus, Ohio 
September 16, 1859 

What is that Dred Scott decision? ° Judge Douglas 
labors to show that it is one thing, while I think it is 
altogether different. It is a long opinion, but it is all 
embodied in this short statement: "The Constitution 
of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man 
of his property without due process of law; the right of 
property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in that Constitution: therefore, if Congress shall under- 
take to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave when 
he crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is de- 
priving him of his property without due process of law, 
and is unconstitutional." There is the whole Dred 
Scott decision. They add that if Congress cannot do 
so itself. Congress cannot confer any power to do so, 
and hence any effort by the territorial legislature to 
do either of these things is absolutely decided against. 
It is a foregone conclusion by that court. 

Now, as to this indirect mode by " unfriendly legis- 
lation," all laAvyers here will readily understand that 
such a proposition cannot be tolerated for a moment, 
because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which 
it cannot accompUsh directly. Then I say any legisla- 
tion to control this property, as property, for its benefit 
as property, would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme 
Court, and fully sustained; but any legislation drivmg 
slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

or indirectly, will most assuredly by that court be 
held unconstitutional. 

Judge Douglas says that if the Constitution carries 
slavery into the Territories, beyond the power of the 
people of the Territories to control it as other prop- 
erty, then it follows logically that every one who swears 
to support the Constitution of the United States must 
give that support to that property which it needs. And 
if the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories^ 
beyond the power of the people to control it as other 
property, then it also carries it into the States, ° because 
the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, 
gentlemen, if it were not for my excessive modesty I 
would say that I told that very thing to Judge Douglas 
quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and 
if it were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call 
your attention to it. If you read it, you "will find that 
I not only made that argument, but made it better 
than he has made it since. 

There is, however, this difference. I say now, and 
said then, there is no sort of question that the Supreme 
Court has decided that it is the right of the slaveholder 
to take his slave and hold him in the Territory; and, 
saying this, Judge Douglas himself admits the conclu- 
sion. He says if that is so, this consequence will follow; 
and because this consequence would follow, his argu- 
ment is, the decision cannot therefore be that way — 
" that would spoil my popular sovereignty, and it 
cannot be possible that this great principle has been 
squelched out in this extraordinary way. It might be, 
if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of 
spoiling my humbug." 



THE COLUMBUS SPEECH 33 

Another feature of the Judge's argument about the 
Dred Scott case is an effort to show that that de- 
cision deals altogether in declarations of negatives; 
that the Constitution does not affirm anything as ex- 
pounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it only de- 
clares a want of power, a total absence of power, in 
reference to the Territories. It seems to be his purpose 
to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere 
negative declaration of a want of power in Congress 
to do anything in relation to this matter in the Terri- 
tories. I know the opinion of the judges states that 
there is a total absence of power; but that is, unfortu- 
nately, not all it states; for the judges add that the 
right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution. It does not stop at saying 
that the right of property in a slave is recognized in the 
Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the 
Constitution, but says it is affirmed in the Constitution. 
Its language is equivalent to saying that it is embodied 
and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be 
detached without breaking the Constitution itself. 
In a word, it is part of the Constitution. 

Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to 
make out that decision to be altogether negative, when 
the express language at the vital part is that this is 
distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, 
and I repeat it here, that this decision does not merely 
carry slavery into the Territories, but by its logical 
conclusion it carries it into the States in which we live. 
One provision of that Constitution is, that it shall be 
the supreme law of the land, — I do not quote the 
language, — any constitution or law of any State to 



34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the contrary notwithstanding. This Dred Scott de- 
cision says that the right of property in a slave is 
affirmed in that Constitution which is the supreme law 
of the land, any State constitution or law notwith- 
standing. Then I say that to destroy a thing which is 
distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law 
of the land, even by a State constitution or law, is a 
violation of that supreme law, and there is no escape 
from it. In my judgment there is no avoiding that 
result, save that the American people shall see that 
State constitutions are better construed than our Con- 
stitution is construed in that decision. They must 
take care that it is more faithfully and truly carried 
out than it .is there expounded. 

I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning 
of my remarks I said that this insidious Douglas popu- 
lar sovereignty is the measure that now threatens the 
purpose of the Republican party to prevent slavery from 
being nationalized in the United States. I propose to 
ask your attention for a little while to some proposi- 
tions in affirmance of that statement. Take it just 
as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend and 
apply that principle elsewhere, and consider where it 
will lead you. I now put this proposition, that Judge 
Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will reopen the 
African slave-trade ;° and I will demonstrate it by any 
variety of ways in which you can turn the subject or 
look at it. 

The Judge says that the people of the Territories 
have the right, by his principle, to have slaves if they 
want them. Then I say that the people in Georgia have 
the right to buy slaves in Africa if they want them. 



THE COLUMBUS SPEECH 35 

and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction 
between the two things — to show that the one is either 
more wicked or more unlawful; to show, on original 
principles, that one is better or worse than the other; 
or to show by the Constitution that one differs a 
whit from the other. He will tell me, doubtless, that 
there is no constitutional provision against people 
taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him 
that there is equally no constitutional provision against 
buying slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a people 
in the exercise of popular sovereignty ought to do as 
they please about that thing, and have slaves if they 
want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia 
are as much entitled to popular sovereignty, and to buy 
slaves in Africa, if they want them, as the people of 
the Territory are to have slaves if they want them. ^ I 
ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point 
out a distinction. ... 

At the time the Constitution of the United States 

was adopted it was expected that the slave-trade would 

be abohshed. I should assert, and insist upon that, if 

Judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was 

equally expected that slavery would be excluded from 

the Territories, and I can show by history that in regard 

to these two things pubhc opinion was exactly alike, 

while in regard to positive action, there was more done 

in the ordinance of '87 ° to resist the spread of slavery 

than was ever done to abohsh the foreign slave-trade. 

Lest I be misunderstood, I say again that at the time 

of the formation of the Constitution, public expectation 

was that the slave-trade would be abolished, but no 

more so than that the spread of slavery in the Territo- 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ries should be restrained. They stand ahke, except that 
in the ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public 
opinion, showing that it was more committed against 
the spread of slavery in the Territories than against 
the foreign slave-trade. 

Compromise! What word of compromise was there 
about it? Why, the public sense was then in favor of 
the abolition of the slave-trade; but there was at the 
time a very great commercial interest involved in it, and 
extensive capital in that branch of trade. There were 
doubtless the incipient stages of improvement in the 
South in the way of farming, dependent on the slave- 
trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to abol- 
ish the trade after allowing it twenty years, a sufficient 
time for the capital and commerce engaged in it to be 
transferred to other channels. They made no provision 
that it should be abohshed in twenty years; I do not 
doubt that they expected it w^ould be ; but they made 
no bargain about it. The public sentiment left no 
doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away. 
I repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times 
in favor of that matter being a compromise of the Con- 
stitution. It was the pubHc expectation at the time, 
manifested in a thousand ways, that the spread of 
slavery should also be restricted. 

Then I say, if this principle is established, that there 
is no wrong in slavery, and whoever wants it has a 
right to have it; that it is a matter of dollars and 
cents; a sort of question as to how they shall deal 
with brutes; that between us and the negro here there 
is no sort of question, but that at the South the ques- 
tion is between the negro and the crocodile; that it is 



THE COLUMBUS SPEECH 37 

a mere matter of policy; that there is a perfect right, 
according to interest, to do just as you please — wlien 
this is done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners 
and sappers will have formed public opinion for the 
slave-trade. They will be ready for Jeff Davis and 
Stephens, ° and other leaders of that company, to sound 
the bugle for the revival of the slave-trade, for the 
second Dred Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to 
be poured over the free States, while we shall be here 
tied down and helpless, and run over like sheep. 



LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 

Introduction 

Lincoln was ambitious. He was disappointed over his 
failure to win the senatorship. In speaking of his defeat 
he said that he felt "like the boy that stumped his toe; 'it 
hurt too bad to laugh and he was too big to cry.' " However, 
the debates had made him a national figure. The New York 
Tribune had pubhshed them in full, and they were widely 
read throughout the whole country. But before Lincoln 
could hope to achieve the presidency he must win the East. 
Consequently he was exceedingly anxious to present and 
expound his views before a representative Eastern audience; 
at last the opportunity came. In October, 1859, the Young 
Men's Republican Union of New York City invited him to 
deliver a "political lecture" before their association, an 
invitation which he gladly and promptly accepted. 

Lincoln arrived in New York February 27, 1860, and two 
days later delivered his "political lecture" before a large 
and influential assemblage in Cooper Institute. He wore a 
shiny black suit, wrinkled and creased from having been 
ill-packed for a long time in his little valise. His audience 
was of a very different stamp from the holida}^ crowds he 
had been accustomed to face from the hustings of the fron- 
tier. The speaker was presented by William Cullen Bryant, 
who briefly and simply introduced him as "an eminent citizen 
of the West hitherto known to you only by reputation." 

The address which Lincoln made on this occasion was that 
of a political philosopher, not the impromptu speech of a 
backwoods campaign orator which many had supposed him 
to be. Those who camiC expecting an exhibition of rhetorical 
fireworks of the spread-eagle pattern, if such there were, 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 39 

experienced disappointmentv The address bore every mark 
of laborious preparation. It was entirely devoid of anecdote 
or witticism, and was cold, logical and lucid. 

The event and circumstances of Cooper Institute speech 
are thus described by Hon. Joseph H. Choate, who was 
present on that memorable occasion: ''It is now forty years 
since I first saw and heard Abraham Lincoln, but the impres- 
sion which he left on my mind is ineffaceable. After his 
great successes in the West he came to New York to make 
a political address. He appeared in every sense of the 
word like one of the plain people among whom he loved to 
be counted. At first sight there was nothing impressive or 
imposing about him — except that his great stature singled 
him out from the crowd; his clothes hung awkwardly on his 
giant frame, his face was of a dark pallor, without the 
slightest tinge of color; his seamed and rugged features bore 
the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set eyes 
looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave 
little evidence of that brain power which had raised him 
from the lowest to the highest station among his country- 
men; as he talked to me before the meeting, he seemed ill 
at ease, with that sort of apprehension which a young man 
might feel before presenting himself to new and strange audi- 
epce, whose critical disposition he dreaded. It was a great 
audience, including all the noted men — all the learned and 
cultured — of his party in New York: editors, clergymen, 
statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics. They were all very 
curious to hear him. His fame as a powerful speaker had 
preceded him, and exaggerated rumor of his wit — the worst 
forerunner of an orator — had reached the East. When 
Mr. Bryant presented him, on the high platform of the 
Cooper Institute, a vast sea of eager upturned faces greeted 
him, full of intense curiosity to see what this rude child of 
the people was like. He was equal to the occasion. When 
he si^oke he was transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, 
his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. 
For an hour and a half he held his audience in the hollow 
of his hand. His style of speech and manner of delivery 



40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

were severely simple. .What Lowell called 'the grand sim- 
phcities of the Bible/ with which he was so famiUar, were 
reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament 
or rhetoric, without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to 
the point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence or 
the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been startled 
at the earnest and sincere purity of his utterances. It was 
marvellous to see how this untutored man, bj^ mere self- 
discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had out- 
grown all meretricious arts, and found his own way to the 
grandeur and strength of absolute simphcity. 

''He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered so 
thoroughly. He demonstrated by copious historical proofs 
and masterly logic that the fathers who created the Consti- 
tution in order to form a more perfect union, to establish 
justice, and to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves 
and their posterity, intended to empower the Federal 
Government to exclude slavery from the territories. In the 
kindliest spirit, he protested against the avowed threat of 
the Southern States to destroy the Union if, in order to 
secure freedom in these vast regions out of which future 
States were to be carved, a Republican President were 
elected. He closed with an appeal to his audience, spoken 
with all the fire of his aroused and kindling conscience, 
with a full outpouring of liis love of justice and liberty, to 
maintain their pohtical purpose on that lofty and unassail- 
able issue of right and wrong which alone could justify it, 
and not to be intimidated from their high resolve and 
sacred duty by any threats of destruction to the Govern- 
ment or of ruin to themselves. He concluded with this 
telling sentence, which drove the whole argument home to 
all our hearts: 'Let us have faith that right makes might, 
and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as 
we understand it.' That night the great hall, and the 
next day the whole city, rang with delighted applause and 
congratulations, and he who had come as a stranger de- 
parted with the laurels of a great triumph." 

From every standpoint the address was a success. The 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 41 

papers printed it in full. The Evening Post declared that its 
columns were "indefinitely elastic" for Mr. Lincoln's speeches. 
The Tribune said, *'No man ever made such an impression 
upon a New York audience." Even Horace Greeley, who 
had been somewhat an admirer of Douglas, pronounced it 
''unsurpassed" as an argument. The speech revealed 
Lincoln as one of the real leaders in national life. James 
Ford Rhodes says, "Before Lincoln made his Cooper Insti- 
tute speech the mention of his name as a possible nominee 
for President would have been considered as a joke anywhere 
except in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa." 

This was Lincoln's last carefully prepared political argu- 
ment, and without a doubt it did much to determine the 
course of his life during liis remaining years. 

Address at Cooper Institute 
February 27, 18G0 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York : The 
facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly 
old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the 
general use I shall make of them. If there shall be 
any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the 
facts, and the inferences and observations following 
that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Colum- 
bus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator 
Douglas said: 

" Our fathers, when they framed the government 
under which we live, understood this question just as 
well, and even better, than we do now." 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this 
discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise 
and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between 
Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed 
by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

What was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned? 

What is the frame of government under which we 
Hve? The answer must be, " The Constitution of the 
United States." That Constitution consists of the 
original, framed in 1787, and under which the present 
government first went into operation, and twelve 
subsequently framed amendments, ° the first ten of 
which were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? 
I suppose the " thirty-nine " who signed the original in- 
strument may be fairly called our fathers who framed 
that part of the present government. It is almost ex- 
actly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether 
true to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their 
names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to 
quite all, need not now be repeated. 

I take these " thirty-nine," for the present, as be- 
ing " our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live." What is the question which, accord- 
ing to the text, those fathers understood "just as well, 
and even better, than we do now " ? 

It is this: Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in our Federal Territories? 

Upon this. Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, 
and RepubUcans the negative. This affirmation and 
denial form an issue; and. this issue — this question — ■ 
is precisely what the text declares our fathers under- 
stood '' better than we." Let us now inquire whether 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 43 

the '' thh-ty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon 
this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it — 
how they expressed that better understanding. In 
1784,° three years before the Constitution, the United 
States then owning the Northwestern Territory, and 
no other, the Congress of the Confederation had be- 
fore them the question of prohibiting slavery in that 
Territory; and four of the " thirty-nine " who after- 
ward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 
and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, 
Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh WilUamson voted for the 
prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, 
no hne dividing local from Federal authority, nor any- 
thing else, properly forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The other 
of the four, James McHenry, voted against the pro- 
hibition, showing that for some cause he thought it 
improper to vote for it. 

In 1787,° still before the Constitution, but while the 
convention was in session framing it, and while the 
Northwestern Territory still was the only Territory 
owned by the United States, the same question of 
prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before 
the Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the 
" thirty-nine " who afterward signed the Constitution 
were in that Congress, and voted on the question. 
They were William Blount and William Few; and they 
both voted for the prohibition — thus showing that in 
their understanding no line dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Fed- 
eral Government to control as to slavery in Federal ter- 
ritory. This time the prohibition became a law, being 



44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

part of what is now well known as the ordinanT;e of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the 
Territories seems not to have been directly before the 
convention which framed the original Constitution; 
and hence it is not recorded that the " thirty-nine/' 
or any of them, while engaged on that instrument, 
expressed any opinion on that precise question. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordi- 
nance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in 
the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was 
reported by one of the " thirty-nine " — Thomas Fitz- 
simmons, then a member of the House of Representa- 
tives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its 
stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed 
both branches without ayes and nays, which is equiva- 
lent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there 
were sixteen of the " thirty-nine " fathers who framed 
the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
Nicholas Oilman, WilUam S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, 
Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, 
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, 
George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce 
Butler, Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line 
dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything 
in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to pro- 
hibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their 
fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to sup- 
port the Constitution, would have constrained them to 
oppose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the " thirty- 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 45 

nine," was then President of the United States, and 
as such approved and signed the bill, thus completing 
its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his 
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Govermnent to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original 
Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal 
Government the country now constituting the State of 
Tennessee ;° and a few years later Georgia ceded that 
which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and 
Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a con- 
dition by the ceding States that the Federal Govern- 
ment should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. 
Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded 
country. Under these circumstances, Congress, on 
taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely 
prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere 
with it — take control of it — even there, to a certain 
extent. In 1798 Congress organized the Territory of 
Mississippi. In the act of organization they pro- 
hibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory from 
any place without the United States by fine and giving 
freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed both 
branches of Congress \vithout yeas and nays. In that 
Congress were three of the '' thirty-nine " who framed 
the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all prob- 
ably voted for it. Certainly they would have placed 
their opposition to it upon record if, in their under- 
standing, any line dividing local from Federal authority, 



46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisi- 
tions came from certain of our own States; but this 
Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. 
In 1804 Congress gave a territorial organization to 
that part of it which now constitutes the State of 
Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was 
an old and comparatively large city. There were other 
considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was 
extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the peo- 
ple. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit 
slavery; but they did interfere with it — take control 
of it — in a more marked and extensive way than they 
did in the case of Mississippi. The substance of the 
provision therein made in relation to slaves was: 

1st. That no slave should be imported into the 
Territory from foreign parts. 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been imported into the United States since the first 
day of May, 1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except 
by the owner, and for his own use as a settler; the 
penalty in all the. cases being a fine upon the violator 
of the law, and freedom to the slave. 

This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In 
the Congress which passed it there were two of the 
" thirty-nine." They Were Abraham Baldwin and 
Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, 
it is probable they both voted for it. They would not 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 47 

have allowed it to pass without recording their op- 
position to it if, in their understanding, it violated 
either the line properly dividing local from Federal 
authority, or any provision of the Constitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken by yeas and nays, in both 
branches of Congress, upon the various phases of the 
general question. Two of the '' thirty-nine " - Rufus 
King and Charles Pmckney — were members of that 
Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery pro- 
hibition and against all compromises, while Mr. Pmck- 
ney as steadily voted against slavery prohibition and 
ac^ainst all compromises. By this, Mr. King showed 
that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery m 
Federal territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, 
showed that, in his understanding, there was some 
sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition m that 

case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the 
*' thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, 
which I have been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being 
four in 1784, two" in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 
1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be 
thirty of them. But this would be counting John 
Langdon, Roger Sherman, Wilham Few, Rufus King, 
and George Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin 
three times. The true number of those of the " thirty- 
nine " whom I have shown to have acted upon the 
question which, by the text, they understood better 



48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to 
have acted upon it in any way. 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty- 
nine fathers " who framed the government under which 
we hve," who have, upon their official responsibility 
and their corporal oaths, ° acted upon the very question 
which the text aflarms they " understood just as well, 
and even better, than we do now"; and twenty-one 
of them — a clear majority of the whole " thirty-nine " 
— so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross 
political impropriety and A\'ilful perjury if, in their 
understanding, any proper division between local and 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they 
had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted ; and, 
as actions speak louder than words, so actions under 
such responsibility speak still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the 
instances in which they acted upon the question. But 
for what reasons they so voted is not known. They 
may have done so because they thought a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or some pro- 
vision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the way; 
or they may, without any such question, have voted 
against the prohibition on what appeared to them to 
be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has 
sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously 
vote for what he understands to be an unconstitu- 
tional measure, however expedient he may think it; 
but one may and ought to vote against a measure 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 49 

which he deems constitutional if, at the same time, 
he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be un- 
safe to set down even the two who voted against the 
prohibition as having done so because, in their under- 
standing, any proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the " thirty-nine," so far 
as I have discovered, have left no record of their un- 
derstanding upon the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slavery in the Federal Territories. But there is 
much reason to beheve that their understanding upon 
that question would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been mani- 
fested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I 
have purposely omitted whatever understanding may 
have been manifested by any person, however dis- 
tinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who 
framed the original Constitution; and, for the same 
reason, I have also omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any of the " thirty- 
nine " even on any other phase of the general question 
of slavery. If we should look into their acts and dec- 
larations on those other phases, as the foreign slave- 
trade, and the morality and poUcy of slavery generally, 
it would appear to us that on the direct question of 
Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the 
sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have 
acted just as the twenty-three did. Amxong that six- 
teen were several of the most noted antislavery men of 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

those times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, 
and Gouverneur Morris, — while there was not one now 
known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John 
Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 
one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from Federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
Federal Territories; while all the rest had probably 
the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was 
the understanding of our fathers who framed the orig- 
inal Constitution; and the text affirms that they 
understood the question '^ better than we." 

But, so far, I have been considering the understand- 
ing of the question manifested by the framers of the 
original Constitution. In and by the original instru- 
ment, a mode was provided for amending it; and, as I 
have already stated, the present frame of ^' the Govern- 
ment under which we live" consists of that original, 
and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted 
since. Those who now insist that Federal control of 
slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution, 
point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus 
violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provi- 
sions in these amendatory articles, and not in the orig- 
inal instrument. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott 
case plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which 
provides that no person shall be deprived of " life, lib- 
erty or property without due process of law"; while 
Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant them- 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 51 

selves upon the tenth amendment, providing that " the 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution " '' are reserved to the States respectively, or 
to the people." 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were 
framed' by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution — the identical Congress which passed the 
act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of 
slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was 
it the same Congress, but they were the identical, same 
individual men who, at the same session, and at the 
same time within the session, had under considera- 
tion and in progress toward maturity, these constitu- 
tional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery m 
all the territory the nation then owned. The constitu- 
tional amendments were introduced before, and passed 
after, the act enforcing the ordinance of '87; so that, 
during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the 
ordinance, the constitutional amendments were also 

pending. • i j 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, includ- 
ing sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, 
as before stated, were pre-eminently our fathers who 
framed that part of '' the government under which we 
live " which is now claimed as forbidding the Fed- 
eral Government to control slavery in the Federal 
Territories. . 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at tnis 
day to affirm that the two things which that Congress 
deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the 
same time, are absolutely inconsistent mth each other .^ 
And does not such affirmation become impudently 



52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, from 
the same mouth, that those who did the two things 
alleged to be hiconsistent, understood whether they 
really were inconsistent better than we — better than 
he w^ho affirms that they are inconsistent? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers 
of the original Constitution, and the seventy-six mem- 
bers of the Congress which framed the amendments 
thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who 
may be fairly called ''our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we hve." And so assuming, I 
defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in 
his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, 
any proper division of local from Federal authority, 
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to 
show that any living man in the whole world ever did, 
prior to the beginning of the present century (and I 
might almost say prior to the beginning of the last 
half of the present century), declare that, in his under- 
standing, any proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I 
give not only " our fathers who framed the government 
under which we hve," but with them all other living 
men within the century in which it was framed, am.ong 
whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the 
evidence of a single man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 53 

to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do 
so, would be to discard all the hghts of current experi- 
ence — to reject all progress, all improvement. What I 
do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and 
poUcy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon 
evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that 
even their great authority, fairly considered and 
weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case 
whereof we ourselves declare they understood the ques- 
tion better than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely behoves that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 
he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all 
truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But 
he has no right to mislead others who have less access 
to history, and less leisure to study^it, into the false 
behef that '' our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live" were of the same opinion — 
thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful 
evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day 
sincerely believes " our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live " used and apphed principles, 
in other cases, which ought to have led them to under- 
stand that a proper division of local from Federal au- 
thority, or some part of the Constitution, forbids the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, 
at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring 
that, in his opinion, he understands their principles 
better than they did themselves; and especially should 



54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

*'he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they 
understood the question just as well and even better 
than we do now." 

But enough! Let all who believe that ''our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live un- 
derstood this question just as well, and even better 
than we do now/' speak as they spoke, and act as they 
acted upon it. This is all RepubHcans ask — all Repub- 
licans desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers 
marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to 
be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only 
because and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let 
all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudg- 
ingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this Re- 
publicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or 
believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they will 
not, — I would address a few w^ords to the Southern 
people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves a rea- 
sonable and a just people; and I consider that in the 
general quahties of reason and justice you are not 
inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of 
us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as rep- 
tiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You 
will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing 
like it to " Black Republicans." In all your contentions 
with one another, each of you deems an unconditional 
condemnation of ''Black Republicanism °" as the first 
thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of 
us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — hcense, 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 55 

so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted 
to speak at all. Now can you or not be prevailed upon 
to pause and. to consider whether this is quite just to 
us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges 
and specifications, and then be patient long enough to 
hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes 
an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You 
produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our 
party has no existence in your section — gets no votes 
in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does 
it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, 
without change of principle, begin to get votes in your 
section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You 
cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you wiUing 
to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find 
that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes 
in your section this very year. You will then begin to 
discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does 
not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in 
your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. 
And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is prima- 
rily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel 
you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel 
you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is 
ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have 
started — to a discussion of the right or wrong of our 
principle. If our principle, put in practice, would 
wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any 
other object, then our principle, and we with it, are 
sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as 
such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our 



56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; 
and so meet us as if it were possible that something 
may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? 
No! Then you really believe that the principle which 
''our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live " thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and in- 
dorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in 
fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation 
without a moment's consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warn- 
ing against sectional parties given by Washington in 
his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before 
Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of 
the United States, approved and signed an act of Con- 
gress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 
western Territory, which act embodied the policy of 
the government upon that subject up to and at the very 
moment he penned that warning; and about one year 
after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he consid- 
ered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the 
same connection his hope that we should at som^e time 
have a confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning 
a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands 
against you? Could Washington himself speak, would 
he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who 
sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We 
respect that warning of Washington, and we commend 
it to you, together with his example pointing to the 
right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently con- 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 57 

servative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or 
something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it 
not adherence to the old and tried, against the new 
and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical 
old policy on the point in controversy which was 
adopted by " our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live"; v/hilc you with one 
accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old 
policy, and insist upon substituting something new. 
True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that 
substitute shall be. You are divided on new proposi- 
tions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting 
and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of 
you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some for a 
Congressional slave code for the Territories ; some for 
Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery 
within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in 
the Territories through the judiciary; some for the 
"' gur-reat pm'-rinciple " that " if one man would en- 
slave another, no third man should object," fantasti- 
cally called '^popular sovereignty"; but never a man 
among you is in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery 
in Federal Territories, according to the practice of " our 
fathers who framed the government under which we 
live." Not one of all your various plans can show a 
precedent or an advocate in the century within which 
our government originated. Consider, then, whether 
your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your 
charge of destructiveness against us, are based on 
the most clear and stable foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 



58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that 
we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded 
the old pohcy of the fathers. We resisted, and still 
resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater 
prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions? Go back 
to that old policy. What has been will be again, under 
the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the 
old times, readopt the precepts and pohcy of the old 
times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. Wedeny it; and what is your proof? Harper's 
Ferry! John Brown! ! ° John Brown was no Repubhcan; 
and you have failed to imphcate a single Republican in 
his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our 
party is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do 
not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable 
for not designating the man and proving the fact. If 
you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, 
and especially for persisting in the assertion after you 
have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not 
be told that persisting in a charge which one does not 
know to be true, is simply maHcious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Repubhcan designedly 
aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still 
insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily 
lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we 
hold no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were 
not held to and made by 'four fathers who framed the 
government under which we hve." You never dealt 
fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, 
some important State elections were near at hand, and 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 59 

you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charg- 
ing the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of 
us in those elections. The elections came, and your 
expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republi- 
can man Imew that, as to himself at least, your charge 
was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to 
cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and 
declarations are accompanied with a continual protest 
against any interference whatever with your slaves, 
or with you about your slaves. Surely this does not 
encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common 
with '' our fathers who framed the government under 
w^hich we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; 
but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For 
anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know 
there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, 
in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresenta- 
tions of us in their hearing. In your poHtical contests 
among yourselves, each faction charges the other with 
sympathy with Black Republicanism; ° and then, to 
give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism 
to simply be insurrection, blood, and thunder among 
the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than 
they were before the Republican party was organized. 
What induced the Southampton insurrection, ° twenty- 
eight years ago, in which at least three times as many 
fives w^ere lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely 
stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that 
Southampton was '^ got up by Black RepubUcanism." 
In the present state of things in the United States, I 
do not think a general, or even a very extensive, slave 



60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of 
action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means 
of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, 
black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are 
everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can 
be supphed, the indispensable connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection 
of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of 
it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely 
be devised and communicated to twenty individuals 
before some one of them, to save the hfe of a favorite 
master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; 
and the slave revolution in Hayti ° was not an exception 
to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. 
The gunpowder plot ° of British history, though not 
connected with slaves, was more m point. In that case, 
only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet 
one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the 
plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the 
calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and 
open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local 
revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur 
as the natural results of slavery ; but no general insurrec- 
tion of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country 
for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes, 
for such an event, will be ahke disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 
ago, " It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such 
slow degrees as that the evil will wear off insensibly, 
and their places be, pari passu° filled up by free 
white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 61 

itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect 

held up." 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the 
power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. 
He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emanci- 
pation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The 
Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the 
power of restraining the extension of the institution — 
the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never 
occur on any American soil which is now free from 

slavery. 

John Brown's effort was pecuHar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an attempt by wWte men to get up 
a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to 
participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, 
with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not 
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds 
with the many attempts, related in history, at the 
assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast 
broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies 
himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He 
ventures the attempt, which ends in httle else than his 
own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon,"" 
and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry, were, in 
their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to 
cast blame on Old England in the one case, and on New 
England in the other, does not disprove the sameness 
of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you if you could, by the 
use of John Brown, Helper's book,° and the Uke, break 
up the RepubHcan organization? Human action can be 
modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be 



62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against 
slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and 
a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and 
f eehng — that sentiment — by breaking up the political 
organization which raUies around it. You can scarcely 
scatter and disperse an army which has been formed 
into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you 
could, how much would you gain by forcing the senti- 
ment which created it out of the peaceful channel of 
the ballot-box into some other channel? What would 
that other channel probably be? Would the number of 
John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit 
to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be 
palhated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by 
the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right 
plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are 
proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations you have a specific 
and well-understood allusion to an assumed constitu- 
tional right of yours to take slaves into the Federal 
Territories, and to hold them there as property. But 
no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. 
That instrument is literally silent about any such right. 
We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any 
existence in the Constitution, even by impHcation. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will 
destroy the government, tinless you be allowed to con- 
strue and force the Constitution as you please, on all 
points in dispute between you and us. You will rule 
or ruin in all events. 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 63 

This, plainly stated is, your language. Perhaps you 
will say the Supreme Court has decided ° the disputed 
constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. 
But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum 
and decision, the court has decided the question for 
you in a sort of way. The court has substantially said 
it is your constitutional right to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. 
When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I 
mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare ma- 
jority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with 
one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so 
made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one 
another about its meaning, and that it was mainly 
based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the state- 
ment in the opinion that '' the right of property 
in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the 
Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the 
right of property in a slave is not " distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed " in it. Bear in mind, the judges do 
not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is im- 
pliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge 
their veracity that it is '^ distinctly and expressly " 
affirmed there — '' distinctly," that is, not mingled 
with anything else — " expressly," that is, in words 
meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and 
susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by imphcation, 
it would be open to others to show that neither the 
word " slave " nor " slavery " is to be found in the Con- 



64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

stitution, nor the word " property" even, in any con- 
nection with language alluding to the things slave or 
slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the slave 
is alluded to, he is called a " person "; and wherever his 
master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it 
is spoken of as " service or labor which may be due " — 
as a debt payable in service or labor. Also it would be 
open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this 
mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speak- 
ing of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from 
the Constitution the idea that there could be property 
in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and 
reconsider the conclusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remembered that " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we Hve " — 
the men who made the Constitution — decided this 
same constitutional question in our favor long ago; 
decided it without division among themselves when 
making the decision; without division among themselves 
about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far 
as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any 
mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel 
yourselves justified to break up this government un- 
less such a court decision as yours is shall be at once 
submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of pohtical 
action? But you will not abide the election of a Repub- 
lican President! In that supposed event, you say, you 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 65 

will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great 
crime of having destroyed it will be upon us ! That is 
cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and 
mutters through his teeth, " Stand and deliver, or I 
shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer! " 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my 
money — was my own; and I had a clear right to keep 
it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my 
own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, 
to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in 
principle. 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly 
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall 
be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us 
Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though 
much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and 
ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not 
so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their 
demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view 
of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say 
and do, and by the subject and nature of their contro- 
versy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will 
satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi- 
tionally surrendered to them? We know they will 
not. In all their present complaints against us, the 
Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and in- 
surrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, 
in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions 
and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, 
because we know we never had anything to do 



66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total 
abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the 
denunciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them? Simply 
this: we must not only let them alone, but we must 
somehow convince them we do let them alone. This, 
we know by experience, is no easy task. We have 
been so trying to convince them from the very begin- 
ning of our organization, but with no success. In all 
our platforms and speeches we have constantly pro- 
tested our purpose to let them alone; but this has 
had no tendency to convince them. Ahke unavaihng 
to convince them is the fact that they have never 
detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all 
failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: 
cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it 
right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in 
acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated 
■ — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Sena- 
tor Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and en- 
forced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is 
wrong, whether made in pohtics, in presses, in pulpits, 
or in private. We must arrest and return their fugi- 
tive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down 
our free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere 
must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to 
slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their 
troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case pre- 
cisely in this way. Most of them would probably say 
to us, '* Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say what 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS 67 

you please about slavery.'' But we do let them alone, 
— have never disturbed them, — so that, after all, it 
is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will 
continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. 
Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery 
with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings 
against it; and when all these other sayings shall have 
been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will 
be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. 
It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand 
the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, 
and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop 
nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as 
they do, that slavery is morally right and socially ele- 
vating, they cannot cease to demand a full national 
recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 
Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery 
. is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against 
it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and 
swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to 
its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they 
cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlarge- 
ment. All they ask we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it 
right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon 
which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it 
right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its 
full recognition as being right; but thinking it wrong, as 



68 • ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes 
with their view, and against our own? In view of our 
moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do 
this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let 
it alone where it is, because that much is due to the 
necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; 
but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us 
here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids 
this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effec- 
tively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical 
contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied 
and belabored — contrivances such as groping for 
some middle ground between the right and the wrong; 
vain as the search for a man who should be neither a 
living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of '^ don't 
care" ° on a question about which all true men do care; 
such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to 
yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and 
calling, not the sinners,° but the righteous to repentance; 
such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to 
unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washing- 
ton did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by men- 
aces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons 
to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes 
might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our 
duty as we understand it. 



LINCOLN'S FAREWELL ADDRESS AT 
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 

Introduction 

''Early in February the last item of preparation for the 
iourney to Washington had been made. Mr. Lincoln had 
disposed of his household goods and furniture to a neighbor 
and had rented his house; and as these constituted all the 
property he owned in Illinois there was no further occasion 
for concern on that score. In the afternoon of his last day 
in Springfield he came down to our office to examine some 
papers and confer with me about certain legal matters m 
which he still felt some interest. On several previous oc- 
casions he had told me he was coming over to the othce to 
have a long talk with me/ as he expressed it. We ran 
over the books and arranged for the completion of all un- 
settled and unfinished matters. In some cases he had 
certain requests to make -certain Unes of procedure he 
wished me to observe. 

" \fter these things were all disposed of he crossed to the 
opposite side of the room and threw himself down on the 
old office sofa, which, after many years of service, had been 
moved against the wall for support. He lay for some mo- 
ments, his face towards the ceiling, without either ot us 
speaking. Presently he inquired, ' Billy/-he always called 
me by that name-' how long have we been together? 
' Over sixteen vears,' I answered. ' We've never had a cross 
word during all that time, have we?' to which I returned a 
vehement, 'No, indeed we have not.' He then recalled 
some incidents of his early practice and took great pleasure 
in delineating the ludicrous features of many a lawsmt on 
the circuit. It was at this last interview m Springfield that 
he told me of the efforts that had been made by other 
lawyers to supplant me in the partnership with him. He 



70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

insisted that such men were weak creatures, who, to use his 
own language, ' hoped to secure a law practice by hanging 
to his coat-tail.' I never saw him in a more cheerful 
mood. 

"He gathered a bundle of books and papers he wished to 
take with him and started to go; but before leaving he 
made the strange request that the sign-board which swung 
on its rusty hinges at the foot of the stairway should remain. 
'Let it hang there undisturbed,' he said, with a significant 
lowering of his voice. ' Give our clients to understand that 
the election of a President makes no change in the firm of 
Lincoln and Herndon. If I live I'm coming back some 
time, and then we'll go right on practicing law as if nothing 
had ever happened.' He lingered for a moment as if to 
take a last look at the old quarters, and then passed 
through the door into the narrow hallway. I accompanied 
him downstairs. On the way he spoke of the unpleasant 
features surrounding the presidential office. 'I am sick of 
office-holding already,' he complained, 'and I shudder when 
I think of the tasks that are still ahead.' He said the sor- 
row of parting from his old associations was deeper than 
most persons would imagine, but it was more marked in his 
case because of the feeling which had become irrepressible 
that he would never return alive. I argued against the 
thought, characterizing it as an illusory notion not in har- 
mony or keeping with the popular ideal of a President. 
'But it is in keeping with my philosophy,' was his quick 
retort. Our conversation was frequently broken in upon 
by the interruptions of passers-by, who, each in succession, 
seemed desirous of claiming his attention. At length he 
broke away from them all. Grasping my hand warmly 
and with a fervent 'Good-bye,' he disappeared down the 
street, and never came back to the office again. 

"On the morning following this last interview, the 11th 
day of February, the presidential party repaired to the rail- 
way station, where the train which was to convey them to 
Washington awaited the ceremony of departure. . . . 
The day was a stormy one, with dense clouds hanging 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD 71 

heavily overhead. A goodly throng of Springfield people 
had gathered to see the distinguished party safely oil. 
After the latter had entered the car the people closed about 
it until the President appeared on the rear platform. He 
stood for a moment as if to suppress evidences of his 
emotion, and removing his hat made the following brief but 
dignified and touching address." ("Abraham Lincoln, 
Herndon and Weik, vol. i, pages 192-196.) 

Lincoln's Farewell Address at Springfield, 
Illinois 

February 11, 1861 

My Friends: No one, not in my situation, can ap- 
preciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To 
this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe 
everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, 
and have passed from a young to an old man. Here 
my children have been born, and one is buried. I 
now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may 
return, with a task before me greater than that which 
rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of 
that Divine Being who ever attended him, I can- 
not succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. 
Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain 
with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confi- 
dently hope that all will yet be well. To His care 
commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will 
commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE 
HALL 

Introduction 

From the day of his election until February 11, 1861, 
Lincoln remained at his home in Springfield. These were 
trying hours for the newly chosen President. States were 
seceding, the South was preparing for war, the North was 
hesitant and divided, and the administration at Washington 
was wholly unable to cope with the emergencies constantly 
arising. Lincoln could only bide his time and wait for the 
day when he should assume his task. 

On February 11 he bade farewell to his Springfield home 
and neighbors and started for Washington, Though he 
made many addi'esses on the waj^, he was careful not to 
commit himself in regard to his intended pohcy. This 
pecuharity of his speeches added to the misunderstanding 
which disturbed the North. The new President was an 
unknown quantity. The wisdom of Lincoln's course in this 
respect is now apparent. He saw that it was of the utmost 
importance to refrain from specific statements of his plans 
until he should be successfully inaugurated. 

The Independence Hall speech in Philadelphia represents 
the "high-water mark" of the addresses made by Lincoln 
on his way from Springfield to Washington. No one can 
read its concluding sentence without seeing in it an element 
of prophecy. But Lincoln had yet to utter the words which 
were to impart hope and confidence to an anxious people. 

Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia 
February 22, 1861 

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself stand- 
ing in this place, where were collected together the 



ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL 73 

wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from 
which sprang the institutions under which we Uve. 
You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is 
the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. I 
can say in return, sir, that all the pohtical sentiments I 
entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able 
to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in 
and were given to the world from this hall. I have 
never had a feeling, poHtically, that did not spring from 
the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of In- 
dependence. I have often pondered over the dangers 
which were incurred by the men who assembled here 
and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have 
pondered over the toils that were endured by the 
officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that 
independence. I have often inquired of myself what 
great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy 
so long together. It was not the mere matter of sepa- 
ration of the colonies from the motherland, but that 
sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which 
gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, 
but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was 
that which gave promise that in due time the weights 
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that 
all should have an equal chance. This is the senti- 
ment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 
Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that 
basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the 
happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it 
cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly aw- 
ful. But if this country cannot be saved without 
giving up that principle, I was about to say I would 



74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. 
Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there 
is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity 
for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I ma;y 
say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it 
is forced upon the government. The government will 
not use force, unless force is used against it. 

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I 
did not expect to be called on to say a word when I 
came here. I supposed I was merely to do something 
toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said 
something indiscreet. But I have said nothing but 
what I am wiUing to Uve by, and, if it be the pleasure 
of Almighty God, to die by. 



LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

Introduction 

After Lincoln delivered the address at Independence Hall 
he went to Harrisburg. His original intention had been to 
go direct to Washington on the following day, Feb. 23, but 
it was judged advisable to change the plan. Those who were 
responsible for his safety were caused much uneasiness by a 
persistent rumor that there was a plot to assassinate the 
President-elect as he passed through Baltimore. _ Allen 
Pinkerton, the famous detective, who was engaged to investi- 
gate the rumor, reported that there was a strong probabihty 
of such an attempt being made. While Lincoln was m 
Philadelphia Frederick W. Seward came from Washmgton 
to warn him to keep secret the time of his passing through 
Baltimore. Yielding to the importunities of his advisers, 
though greatly against his own inchnation, Lincoln left 
Harrisburg at night, all telegraphic communication with 
Baltimore having been severed, and made the journey to 
Washington in safety. 

There had been widespread apprehension that the maugu- 
ration would never take place without confusion and blood- 
shed. However, the careful precautions of General Scott 
rendered improbable the occurrence of unpleasant contm- 
gencies. 

"The 4th of March came in 1861 on Monday; and while 
the weather was variable, clouds dispersed and a chilly wind 
subsided as the day drew on. A small wooden canopy before 
the great eastern portico sheltered the public dignitaries, 
among whom were to be seen Buchanan, the retiring Presi- 
dent, careworn and ill at case; Chief Justice Taney, bowed 



76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with years and frail of aspect, who sat robed in black silk, 
ready to administer at the close of this address the same oath 
he had administered to six predecessors; and those two 
defeated candidates of the sundered Democracy, Brecken- 
ridge and Douglas. Breckenridge, now retiring as Vice- 
President, had borne honorably his part in the electoral 
count, whatever disaffection he might have felt; Douglas, 
no longer condescending, held courteously the hat of the 
President-elect, which he had taken when the ceremonies 
began. To the crowd of auditors in front, some drawn by 
sympathy and others by critical curiosity, Senator Baker 
of Oregon, a personal and political friend, presented the 
man of the occasion, Abraham Lincoln, who, walking de- 
hberately forward to the front of the canopy, bowed in 
response to the faint cheers that greeted him, and, after 
adjusting his glasses, read his address from printed sheets, 
altered by his pen, which lay upon a small table in front of 
him and were kept in place by his cane. The applause in- 
creased as he went on, and though the reader's voice seemed 
to falter in the last affecting paragraph, it had otherwise its 
usual penetrating tone." ("History of the United States," 
•James Schouler, vol. vi, page 5.) 

The First Inaugural Address has won a place among the 
noblest productions in the Enghsh language. It is entirely 
devoid of the "spread eagleism" which marks and mars so 
many of our American political addresses. It has the beauty 
and the eloquence of simpUcity, But literary excellence was 
not the goal Lincoln had in view. His desire was to inspire 
hope and confidence, and if possible to prevent the war. 
His close study of Euchd had taught him that a "straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points." Applying 
the axiom to composition, simplicity and directness, strength 
of reasoning, and clearness of expression characterized all 
his productions. Nowhere do these admirable qualities 
stand out more prominentl}^ than in this particular address. 
The nation understood it. To the North it was hke the 
sound of a thousand trumpets ; to the South it was a decla- 
ration of war. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 77 



First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1861 

Fellow-Citizens of the United States: In compliance 
with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear 
before you to address you briefly, and to take in your 
presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the 
United States to be taken by the President " before he 
enters on the execution of his office." 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension ° seems to exist among the people of the 
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican 
administration their property and their peace and per- 
sonal security are to be endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all 
the while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him 
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare that " I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination 
to do so." Those who nom.inated and elected me did 
so with full knowledge that I had made this and many 
similar declarations, and had never recanted them. 
And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my 
acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: 

"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the 



78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

rights of the States, and especially the right of each 
State to order and control its own domestic institu- 
tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is 
essential to that balance of power on which the per- 
fection and endurance of our pohtical fabric depend, 
and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of 
the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, 
I only press upon the public attention the most conclu- 
sive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the 
property, peace, and security of no section are to be in 
any wise endangered by the now incoming administra- 
tion. I add, too, that all the protection which, con- 
sistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be 
given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when 
lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully 
to one section as to another. 

There is much controversy ° about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainty written in the Constitution as any 
other of its provisions: — 

" No person held to service or labour in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein be dis- 
charged from such service or labour, but shall be de- 
livered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
labour may be due." 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law- 
giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 79 

support to the whole Constitution - to this provision 
as much as to any other. To the proposition then that 
slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause 
" shall be delivered up," their oaths are unammous. 
Now if they would make the effort in good temper 
could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and 
pass a law by means of which to keep good that unani- 



mous oath? 



mous oain: . . , . 

There is some difference of opmion whether tins 
clause should be enforced by national or by State au- 
thority; but surely that difference is not a very materia 
one If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but 
little consequence to him or to others by which author- 
ity it is done. And should any one in any case be 
content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely 
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept/ 

A.'ain, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civiUzed and humane 
. jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be 
not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? Arid might it 
not be well at the same time to provide by law for the 
enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which 
guarantees that " the citizens of each State shall be en- 
titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the 

several States?," 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the Constitu- 
tion or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do 
not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress 
as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be 
much safer for all, both in official and private stations 
to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to 
find impunity in having them held to be unconstitu- 
tional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration 
of a President under our National Constitution. Dur- 
ing that period fifteen different and greatly distin- 
guished citizens have, in succession, administered the 
executive branch of the government. They have con- 
ducted it through many perils, and generally with 
great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I 
now enter upon the same task for the brief constitu- 
tional term of four years under great and peculiar 
difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, hereto- 
fore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is imphed, if not expressed, in the 
fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for its own termination. 
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 
National Constitution, and the Union will endure for 
ever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some 
action not provided for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One 
party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to 
speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it': 

Descending from these general principles, we find the 
proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 81 

perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. 
The Union is much older than the Constitution.^ It 
was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 
1774 It was matured and continued by the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly 
pUghted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by 
the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, 
in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and 
estabhshing the Constitution was "to form a more 
perfect Union." 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a 
part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union 
is less perfect than before the Constitution, havmg 
lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its 
own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; ° 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 
void; and that acts of violence, within any State 
or States, against the authority of the United States, 
are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to 
circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken; ° and to the 
extent of my abihty I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of 
the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Do- 
ing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; 
and I shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my 
r/ghtful masters, the American people, shall withhold 
the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner 
dkect the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union 
that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- 
lence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon 
the national authority. The power confided to me 
will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property 
and places belonging to the government, and to collect 
the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be neces- 
sary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no 
using of force against or among the people anywhere. 
Where hostihty to the United States, in any interior 
locahty, shall be so great and universal as to prevent 
competent resident citizens from holding the Federal 
offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious 
strangers among the people for that object. While the 
strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce 
the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would 
be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that 
I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such 
offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 
nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, 
the people every^vhere shall have that sense of perfect 
security which is most favorable to calm thought and 
reflection. The course here indicated will be followed 
unless current events and experience shall show a mod- 
ification or change to be proper, and in ever}^ case and 
exigency my best discretion will be exercised accord- 
ing to circumstances actually existing, and with a view 
and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national 
troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies 
and affections. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 83 

That there are persons in one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 
any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but 
if there be such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union may I not 

speak? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- 
struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to as- 
certain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so 
desperate a step while there is any possibihty that any 
portion of the ills you fly from ° have no real existence.^ 
Will you, while the certam ills you fly to are greater 
than all the real ones you fly from - will you risk the 
commission of so fearful a mistake? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all consti- 
tutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, 
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has 
been denied? I think not. Happily the human mmd 
is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity 
of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance m 
which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has 
ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a 
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly writ- 
ten constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of 
view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a 
right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All 
the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so 
plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, 
guarantees and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that 
controversies never arise concerning them. But no or- 
ganic law can ever be framed with a provision specih- 



84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

cally applicable to every question which may occur 
in practical administration. No foresight can antici- 
pate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, 
express provisions for all possible questions. Shall 
fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by 
State authority? The Constitution does not expressly 
say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? 
The Constitution does not expressly say. Must 
Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The 
Constitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into 
majorities and minorities. If the minority will not ac- 
quiesce, the majority must, or the government must 
cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing 
the government is acquiescence on one side or the 
other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than 
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will 
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will 
secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be 
controlled by such minority. For instance, why may 
not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two 
hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions 
of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated 
to the exact temper of doing this. 

Is there such a perfect identity of interest among the 
States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 85 

checks and limitations, and always changing easily 
with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sen- 
timents, is the only true sovereign of a free people. 
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or 
to depotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a 
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly m- 
admissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, 
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- 
preme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be 
binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to 
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to 
very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases 
by all other departments of the government. And 
while it is obviously possible that such decision may 
be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect fol- 
lowing it, being limited to that particular case, with the 
chance that it may be overruled and never become a 
precedent for other cases, can better be borne than 
could the evils of a different practice. At the same 
time, the candid citizen must confess that if the pohcy 
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the 
whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of 
the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, m ordi- 
nary litigation between parties in personal actions, the 
people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having 
to that extent practically resigned their government 
into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there 
in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. 
It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide 
cases properly brought before them and it is no fault 



86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to pohtical 
purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, 
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 
wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only 
substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the 
Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the 
foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, 
as any law can ever be in a community where the moral 
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. 
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal 
obhgation in both cases, and a "few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be 
worse in both cases after the separation of the sections 
than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly 
suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without re- 
striction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only 
partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all 
by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- 
not remove our respective sections from each other, nor 
build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence 
and beyond the reach of each other; but the different 
parts of our country caimot do this. They cannot but 
remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable 
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, 
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or 
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can 
aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? 
Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 87 

you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on 
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, 
the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse 
are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary 
of the existing government, they can exercise their 
constitutional right of amendmg it, or their revolution- 
ary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be 
ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic 
citizens are desirous of having the National Constitu- 
tion amended. While I make no recommendation of 
amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority 
of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised 
in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument it- 
self; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor 
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded 
the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that 
to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that 
it allows amendments to originate with the people 
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or 
reject propositions originated by others not especially 
chosen for the purpose, and which might not be pre- 
cisely such as they would wish to either accept or re- 
fuse. I understand a proposed amendment ° to the 
Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not 
seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Fed- 
eral Government shall never interfere with the domestic 
institutions of the States, including that of persons held 
to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have 
said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of par- 
ticular amendments so far as to say that, holding 



88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, 
I have no objection to its being made express and 
irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him 
to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 
people themselves can do this also if they choose; but 
the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His 
duty is to administer the present government as it 
came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by 
him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If the 
Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and 
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the 
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by 
the judgment of this great tribmial of the American 
people. 

By the frame of the government under which we live, 
this same people have wisely given their pubhc servants 
but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wis- 
dom, provided for the return of that Uttle to their own 
hands at very short intervals. While the people retain 
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any 
extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure 
the government in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of 
you in hot haste to a step which you would never take 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 89 

deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking 
time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such 
of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Consti- 
tution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws 
of your own framing under it; while the new adminis- 
tration will have no immediate power, if it would, to 
change either. If it were admitted that you who are 
dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there 
still is no single good reason for precipitate action. 
InteUigence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm re- 
liance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored 
land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all 
our present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You 
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the gov- 
ernment, while I shall have the most solemn one to 
" preserve, protect, and defend it.° " 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every hving heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union when again touched, as they surely will 
be, by the better angels of our nature. 



LINCOLN'S REPLY TO SECRETARY SEWARD'S 

OFFER TO BECOME THE HEAD OF 

THE ADMINISTRATION 

Introduction 

When William H. Seward, who for years had been the 
acknowledged leader of the antislavery forces, was defeated 
for the Repubhcan nomination by the Illinois rail-splitter, 
he could not altogether conceal his very natural disappoint- 
ment. Nevertheless, during the campaign of 1860 he did 
not sulk in his tent, but rendered valuable service to the 
party. After the election Lincoln promptly slated his two 
principal rivals for the nomination for the two most important 
positions in his Cabinet; Seward to be Secretary of State, 
and Chase, Secretary of the Treasury. Unlike Chase, when 
Seward became a member of Lincoln's Cabinet he put aside 
all presidential aspirations. He did not, however, believe 
that Lincoln was capable of filling the office to which he had 
been elected. On the strength of this conviction he wrote 
the President a letter offering to assume larger responsibilities 
than those which strictly belonged to his portfolio. Lincoln's 
courteous but decisive reply showed clearly that the Illinois 
statesman had not come to Washington with the intention 
of resigning the presidency to any of his subordinates. 

Letter to William H. Seward 

April 1, 1861 
Hon. W. H. Seward. . 

My Dear Sir: Since parting with you I have been 
considering your paper dated this day, and entitled 
" Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." 



LETTER TO W. H. SEWARD 



91 



The first proposition in it is, '' First, We are at the 
end of a month's administration, and yet without a 
poUcy either domestic or foreign." 

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I 
said: " The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
to the government, and to collect the duties and im- 
posts." This had your distinct approval at the time; 
and taken in connection with the order I immediately 
gave General Scott, directing him to employ every 
means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, 
comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with 
the single exception that it does not propose to abandon 
Fort Sumter. 

Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement ot 
Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a party 
issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more 
national and patriotic one. 

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo 
certainly brings a new item within the range of our 
foreign pohcy; but up to that time we have been pre- 
paring circulars and instructions to ministers and the 
like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion 
that we had no foreign pohcy. 

Upon your closing propositions — that ^'whatever 
pohcy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution 

of it." 

" For this purpose it must be somebody's business 

to pursue and direct it incessantly." 

" Either the President must do it himself, and be all 
the while active in it, or 

" Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once 



92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and 
abide " — I remark that if this must be done, I must 
do it. When a general line of poHcy is adopted, I appre- 
hend there is no danger of its being changed without 
good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unneces- 
sary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I 
wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of 
all the cabinet. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S LETTER TO GENERAL 
McCLELLAN 

George B. McClellan was appointed to the command of 
the Army of the Potomac on Nov. 1, 1861. He immediately 
proved himself an able engineer and a superb organizer. He 
also possessed the ability to inspire great personal devotion 
on the part of his men. But his campaigns against Lee were 
not crowned with success. Many beheved that McClellan's 
failure to show tangible results in the field was due to over- 
cautiousness, a view which Lincoln shared. On Jan. 31, 
1862, the President ordered a forward movement of the army. 
As this order conflicted with McClellan's own plans he 
strenuously objected. Lincoln rephed in a letter which 
exhibits the perspicuity that was always so marked an element 
in his style. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
February 3, 1862. 

Major - General McClellan : 

My Dear Sir: You and I have distinct and different 
plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac — 
yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock 
to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the rail- 
road on the York River; mine to move directly to a 
point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the follow- 
ing questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
expenditure of time and money than mine? 



94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your 
plan than mine? 

Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
plan than mine? 

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, 
that it would break no great line of the enemy's com- 
munications, while mine would? 

Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be 
more difficult by your plan than mine? 
Yours truly, 

Abraham Lincoln 



LINCOLN'S LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 

Introduction 

In his day Horace Greeley was one of the most potent 
forces in American pohtics. His paper, the New York 
Tribune, circulated throughout the entire North. He was 
a brilUant, vigorous, and aggressive writer ; his epigrammatical 
editorials were everywhere eagerly read and did much to 
influence pubUc opinion. . . . i -4. 

Greeley, who brought a powerful opposition to bear against 
the nomination of Seward, the logical candidate, supported 
the impossible candidacy of Bates, and thus created a situa- 
tion which made the nomination of Lincoln inevitable. He 
was never directly a supporter of Lincoln's aspirations. His 
slogan was, ' ' Anything to beat Seward." 

After the accession of Lincoln to the presidency Greeley 
became one of his most captious and unreasonable critics. 
He had done all that he possibly could to create the conditions 
which caused the war, but when the southern states seceded 
he advocated allowing the ''erring sisters" to 'depart m 
peace." During the early years of the war when the military 
commanders of the North were committing blunder alter 
blunder, his criticisms complicated affairs and embarrassed 
the administration. He joined with Charles Sumner and 
other radical abohtionistsindemandingtheimmediate emanci- 
pation of the slaves. It was with reference to criticism m 
this regard that Lincoln wTote the followmg letter. Ihe 
first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation had already 
been made when the letter was written. 

"President Lincoln's reply is remarkable not only tor skill 
in separating the true issue from the false, but also for the 
eauipoise and dignity with which it maintained his authority 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

as a moral arbiter between contending factions." (Nicolay's 
"Life of Lincoln.") 



Letter to Horace Greeley 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
Aug. 22, 1862. 
Hon. Horace Greeley. 

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, 
addressed to me through the New York Tribune. If 
there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact 
which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and 
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences 
which I may beheve to be falsely drawn, I do not, now 
and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible 
in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in 
deference to an old friend whose heart I have always 
supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I '' seem to be pursuing," as you say, 
I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the short- 
est way under the Constitution.^ The sooner the 
national authority can be restored, the nearer the 
Union will be " the Union as it was." If there be those 
who would not save the Union unless they could at 
the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. 
If there be those who would not save the Union un- 
less they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do 
not agree with them. My paramount object in this 
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save 

1 Lincoln meant to respect the Constitution in all things; 
nevertheless, in the process of saving the Union the Constitution 
was sadly, though unavoidably, strained. 



LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 97 

or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union with- 
out freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save 
it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could 
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that. What I do about slavery and the 
colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the 
Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not 
beheve it would help to save the Union. I shall do less 
whenever I shall beUeve what I am doing hurts the 
cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall beheve 
doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct 
errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt 
new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. 
I have here stated my purpose according to my 
view of official duty; and I intend no modification of 
my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every- 
where could be free. 

Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER 

Introduction 

When General McClellan was commander of the Army 
of the Potomac, "Fighting Joe Hooker" was one of his most 
merciless critics. Later, when McClellan was superseded 
by Burnside, Hooker's attitude to his new chief was the same 
as it had been to McClellan. Although Lincoln had by no 
means been pleased with the captious spirit displaj^ed by 
Hooker, he had sufficient confidence in him to appoint him 
to the chief command of the Army of the Potomac after the 
disastrous failure of Burnside at Fredericksburg in December, 
1862. 

In appointing Hooker the President made his own choice, 
though there is little doubt that in naming him he was 
prompted by the sentiment of the country and the great 
popularity of the General. The day after Hooker's appoint- 
ment Lincoln wrote him this frank and kindly letter. 

Letter to General Joseph Hooker 
January 26, 1863 

Major-General Hooker. 

General: I have placed you at the head of the Army 
of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what 
appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it 
best for you to know that there are some things in 
regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I 
beheve you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of 
course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics 



LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER 99 

with your profession, in which you are right. You h^ve 
confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an 
indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, 
within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm: 
but I think that during General Bumside's command 
of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition 
and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you 
did a great wrong to the country and to a most meri- 
torious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, 
in such a way as to beUeve it, of your recently saying 
■ that both the army and the government needed a 
dictator Of course it was not for this, but m spite ot 
it, that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What 
I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the 
dictatorship. The government will support you to the 
utmost of its abiUty, which is neither more nor less 
than it has done and will do for all commanders. I 
much fear that the spirit which you have aided to in- 
fuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and 
withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon 
you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down 
Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive agam, could 
get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails 
in it • and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness 
but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and 

give us victories. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. . 



LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 

Introduction 

Soon after the battle of Gettysburg, David J. Wills of 
that town suggested that a portion of the field be set apart 
for a national cemetery. Under the direction of Governor 
Curtin about seventeen and a half acres were selected for the 
purpose and improved. It w^as decided to dedicate the 
cemetery on the nineteenth of November, 1863. Edward 
Everett, the last survivor of the great orators of an earlier 
day, was selected to deliver the oration.. A formal invita- 
tion was extended to the President to participate in the dedi- 
cation. In the invitation we find these words: ''It is the 
desire that after the oration, you as chief magistrate formally 
set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appro- 
priate remarks." 

Lincoln received this invitation on November 2, which 
gave him about two weeks for preparation. They were 
busy weeks indeed, and it was even doubtful whether he 
would be able to be present at the dedicatory ceremonies. 
Joshua Speed, Lincoln's Attorney-General, states that the 
President told him "the day before he left Washington he 
found time to write about half of his speech." It is alto- 
gether probable, however, that according to his habit Lincoln 
had meditated upon his subject. 

Nowhere are the circumstances of the delivery of the 
Gettysburg address more touchingly and impress! vel}^ de- 
scribed than in "The Perfect Tribute," by Mary R. S. 
Andrews: "At eleven o'clock on the morning of Nov. 19, 
1863, a vast silent multitude billowed like waves of the sea 
over what had been not long before the battlefield of Gettys- 
burg. There were wounded soldiers there who had beaten 
their way four months ago tlirough a singeing fire across 



THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 101 

these quiet fields, who had seen the men die who were buried 
here. There were troops, grave and responsible, who must 
soon go again into battle; there were the rank and file of an 
everyday American gathering in surging thousands; and 
above them all on the open-air platform there were the leaders 
of the land, the pilots who to-day lifted a hand from the ship 
of state to salute the memory of those gone down in the 
storm. Most of the men in that group of honor are now 
passed over to the majority, but their names are not dead in 
American history — great ghosts who walk stiU in the annals 
of their country, their flesh-and-blood faces were turned 
attentively that bright, still November afternoon toward 
the orator of the day whose voice still held the audience. 

"For two hours Everett spoke and the throng listened 
untired, fascinated by the dignity of his look and manner 
almost as much perhaps as by the speech which has taken a 
place in literature. . . . 

'''As the clear, cultivated voice fell into silence the mass of 
people burst into a long storm of applause, for they knew 
that they had heard an oration which was an event. At 
last, as the ex-Governor of Massachusetts, the ex-Ambassador 
to England, the ex-Secretary of State, the ex-Senator of the 
United States — handsome, distinguished, graceful, sure of 
voice and movement — took his seat, a tall, gaunt figure 
detached itself from the group on the platform and slouched 
slowly across the open space and stood facing the audience. 
A stir and a whisper brushed over the field of humanity as 
if a breeze had rippled a monstrous bed of poppies." 

Lincoln's voice was poor and his manner graceless; his 
address was heard only by those who happened to be near 
the platform, and was not appreciated even by those who 
did hear it. Everett appears to have been the only person 
in the vast audience who realized that the President had 
dehvered a truly great oration. Lincoln himself felt that 
his brief speech had been an ignominious faihire. But as 
the years have rolled by, the Gettysburg address has im- 
pressed itself more and more upon the hearts and minds of 
the American people. With the exception of the second 



102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

inaugural address and some of Webster's noblest periods it is 
unequalled in the realm of American oratory. The world 
most certainly will never forget what was done upon the field 
of Gettysburg, and we can say with equal certainty that it 
will never forget what was said there. 



Address at Gettysburg. November 19, 1863 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in hb- 
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met 
on a great battlefield of that war. We have come 
to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
place for those who here gave their fives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we 
cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add 
or detract. The world will little note nor long re- 
member what w^e say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; 



THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 103 

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom; and that government 
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth. 



LINCOLN'S LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT 

April 30, 1864 

Introduction 

When Lincoln wrote this letter he believed that his long 
and thus far fruitless search for a man who could take Rich- 
mond was ended. The silent, square-jawed soldier who had 
applied in vain for a colonel's commission at the beginning 
of the conflict was now the ''man of the hour." A West 
Point graduate and a veteran of the Mexican War, Grant had 
retired from the army to pursue the vocations of peace, but 
had not been successful. A soldier first and last, it required 
the great opportunities of the present crisis to bring out his 
superlative talent. His success had attracted the attention 
of the President, who was alert to discover men of military 
genius. 

Lincoln met Grant face to face for the first time at a 
crowded reception at the White House, March 8, 1864. An 
appointment between them was fixed for the next day, and 
on the following day, March 10, Grant was made Commander- 
in-chief of the Armies of the United States. He was now 
the most popular hero in the North, and parties and factions 
vied with each other in his praise. The path of his promo- 
tion had been beset with huge obstacles, and obloquy and 
misrepresentation had bitterly pursued him. But Donelson, 
Vicksburg, and Chattanooga were triumphs whose cumula- 
tive force overwhelmed all detractors and raised their victor 
to a height of glory such as few soldiers have ever attained. 



LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT 105 

Letter to General U. S. Grant 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
April 30, 1864. 
Lieutenant General Grant: 

Not expecting to see you again before the spring 
campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire 
satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, 
so far as I understand it. The particulars of your 
plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant 
and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to 
obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While 
I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture 
of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know 
these points are less Hkely to escape your attention than 
they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which 
is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know 
it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may 
God sustain you. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY 

Introduction 

"Mr. Lincoln's goodness of nature was boundless. In 
childhood it showed itself in unfeigned aversion to every 
form of cruelty to animal life. When he was President it 
found expression in that memorable letter to Mrs. Bixby 
of Boston, who had given, irrevocably given, as was then 
supposed, five sons to the country. The letter was dated 
November 21, 1864, before the excitement of his second 
election was over." — (George S. Boutwell, in "Reminis- 
cences of Abraham Lincoln.") 

Letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
November 21, 1864. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General 
of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel 
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine 
which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of 
a loss so overwhehning. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found in 
the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray 
that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of 



LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY 107 

yoiir bereavement, and leave you only the cherished 
memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice 
upon the altar of freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln, 



LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

Introduction 

When Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on 
the fourth of March, 1865, he had but five weeks to live, but 
they were to be weeks of triumph. His position was very 
different from what it had been when he stood in the same 
place four years before. He was no longer an unknown, dis- 
trusted backwoodsman who, in the minds of most of his 
countrymen, owed his elevation to the presidency to the fact 
that the strong men of his party were unavailable. No 
longer was there any doubt as to the final issue of the war: 
at last the President had found generals able to lead the 
armies of the North to conclusive victory. The doom of 
the Confederacy was sealed, and universal confidence pre- 
vailed that in a few weeks the war would end. The country 
had testified to its supreme faith in Abraham Lincoln by re- 
electing him by a magnificent and overwhelming majority. 

"The second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln took place 
out of doors at the east portico of the Capitol and before an 
assembled crowd. It was the first re-election ceremonial 
since Andrew Jackson's time, for Presidents of late had 
served but a single term, and unlike most occasions of the 
kind it renewed the pageantry of a first induction. By this 
time the bronze statue of liberty surmounted the finished 
dome of the national temple, looking eastward as though 
peering to discern the first sunbeams of hallowed peace and 
restoration in the dappled glow of the horizon. A throng 
strange in one respect assembled here; no favored race of 
men monopolized the honors of the day, for the negro, hitherto 
enslaved and degraded, found place in both civic procession 
and military escort which attended the ceremony. Lincoln's 
brief inaugural address delivered before the oath which 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 109 

Chase, the new Chief Justice, administered to him, proved 
his last great message to his fellow-countrymen, and its 
language will be remembered while America has a literature. 

''The assemblage on this fourth of March, we may remark, 
was a large one, and the inaugural ceremonies were brief. 
Andrew Johnson had already been installed as Vice-President 
in the Senate Chamber at noon and before the President 
arrived. The balmy and genial day of Lincoln's first induc- 
tion contrasted with the present, for there had been incessant 
rain for two days and the skies were still dark and angry 
during the forenoon; yet the sun came out while the man of 
the people spoke and all was halcyon and radiant by evening. 
The former day, observed a northern journal, 'was the exor- 
dium of the great struggle ; the latter, we fervently believe, 
proves its peroration.'" ("History of the United States," 
James Schouler.) 

With the exception of the Gettysburg address this Second 
Inaugural is without a doubt the noblest product of Abraham 
Lincoln's mind and heart. It is a part of our literature which 
the American people have every reason to regard with just 
pride. In speaking of it Lincoln himself said, "I expect 
it to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything I have 
produced." 

"In three or four hundred words that burn with the heat 
of their compression he tells the history of the war and reads 
its lesson. No nobler thoughts were ever conceived. No 
man ever found words more adequate to his desire. Here is 
the whole tale of the nation's shame and the misery of her 
heroic struggles to free herself therefrom and of her victory. 
Had Lincoln ^witten a hundred times as much more, he 
would not have said more fully what he desired to say. 
Every thought receives its complete expression, and there is 
no word employed which does not directly and manifestly 
contribute to the development of the central thought." 
("The Spectator," London, May 2, 189L) 



110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Second Inaugural Address 
March 4, 1865 

Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oatli of the presidential office, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was at 
the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of 
a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, 
at the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs 
the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, 
little that is new could be presented. The progress of 
our arms,° upon which all else chiefly depends, is as 
well laiown to the pubHc as to myself; and it is, I trust, 
reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it 
is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend- 
ing civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. 
While the inaugural address was being delivered from 
this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union 
without war, insurgent agents ° were in the city seeking 
to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide efTects, by negotiation. Both par- 
ties deprecated war; but one of them would make war 
rather than let the nation survive; and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war 
came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 111 

slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the southern part of it. These slaves con- 
stituted a pecuHar and powerful interest. All knew 
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest 
was the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war; while the Government claimed 
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial 
enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
or the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease 
with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. 
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less 
fundamental and astounding. Both read the same 
Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes 
His aid against the other. It may seem strange that 
any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance 
in wringing their bread from the sweat of other 
men's faces: but let us judge not,° that we be not 
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — 
that of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has His ov/n puiposes. ''Woe unto the 
world because of offenses! ° for it must needs be that 
offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the 
offense cometh. " If we shall suppose that American 
slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence 
of God, must needs come, but which, having continued 
through His appointed tim.e, He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible 
war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, 
shall we discern therein any departure from those divine 



112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

attributes which the believers in a living God always 
ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we 
pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily 
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all 
the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and 
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until 
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid 
by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ''The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 
gether. "° 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind 
up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his or- 
phan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all 
nations. 



LINCOLN'S LAST ADDRESS 

Introduction 

At the time of Lincoln's second inauguration Lee's army 
was at Petersburg making its last stand in the four years' 
defense of Richmond. For weeks Grant had been drawing 
the lines ever tighter about the diminished and exhausted 
forces of the South. The fall of the Confederacy now seemed 
inevitable. Already had Lee informed the Confederate 
government of the necessity of abandoning Richmond. On 
the twenty-second of March Lincoln went to City Point in 
order to be ready to decide important questions which might 
arise in reference to the capture of Richmond. On the 
tliird of April Lee evacuated Petersburg and marched south, 
hoping to effect a junction with Joseph E. Johnston, but at 
Appomattox Court House he was overtaken by the pursuing 
Federal troops and compelled to surrender. 

The day after the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia 
started on its brief retreat Lincoln proceeded up the James 
River to Richmond, and with four companions and a guard 
of ten sailors walked through the deserted streets of the Con- 
federate capital. He then went back to City Point, remain- 
ing until the ninth of April, when he returned to Washington. 

On the evening of the eleventh of April a crowd gathered 
before the White House to serenade the President and after- 
ward clamored for a speech. Lincoln responded with a grace- 
ful and feeling tribute to the men who had borne arms in 
defense of the Union, and added an eloquent plea for the 
pohcy of reconstruction which he had already outlined and 
inaugurated. A number of districts in the southern states 
had been wTestcd from the Confederacy in the early part of 
the war. In these districts Lincoln immediately began a 
work of reconstruction; he appointed mihtary governors to 



114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

rule until a sufficient number of the inhabitants demonstrated 
their loyalty to the Union. Under this plan two congressmen 
were elected from Louisiana and a constitution abolishing 
slavery was adopted. Congress, however, was dominated 
by a majority of uncompromising radicals who were strenu- 
ously opposed to so reasonable and concihatory a plan. 

Had Lincoln lived it is altogether probable that with his 
consummate tact and unwearying patience he would have 
succeeded where his well-meaning but bungling and impolitic 
successor failed. But Lincoln's work was done. Four days 
after he uttered his impromptu plea for tolerance and charity 
in deahng with the conquered states, a new President took 
the oath of office. The passing of Lincoln removed the last 
check upon the Congressional majority, which proceeded at- 
once to carry out its implacable pohcy. Reconstruction 
was not completed until most of the statesmen who had 
played their parts in the great war drama had passed from 
the theater of action. 



Last Public Address. April 11, 1865 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness 
of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Rich- 
mond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent 
army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose 
joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst 
of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow 
must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanks- 
giving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. 
Nor must those whose harder part give us the cause 
of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honors must -not be 
parcelled out with others. I myself was near the front, 
and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of 
the good news to you; but no part of the honor for plan 
or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skilful offi- 



LINCOLN'S LAST ADDRESS 115 

cers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy 
stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority — reconstruction — which has had 
a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 
more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with 
great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between inde- 
pendent nations, there is no authorized organ for us 
to treat with — no one man has authority to give up 
the rebellion for any other man. We simply must 
begin with and mold from disorganized and discord- 
ant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrass- 
ment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves 
as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruc- 
tion. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the 
reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be pro- 
voked by that to which I cannot properly offer an 
answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes 
to my Imowledge that I am much censured for some 
supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain 
the new State government of Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no more 
than, the public laiows. In the annual message of 
December, 18G3, and in the accompanying proclama- 
tion, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase 
goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, should 
be acceptable to and sustained by the executive govern- 
ment of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was 
not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, 
and I also distinctly protested that the executive claimed 
no right to say when or whether members should be 
admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This 



116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

plan was in advance submitted to the then Cabinet, 
and distinctly approved by every member of it. One 
of them suggested that I should then and in that con- 
nection apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the 
theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; 
that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship 
for freed people, and that I should omit the protest 
against my own power in regard to the admission of 
members to Congress. But even he approved every 
part and parcel of the plan which has since been 
employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring eman- 
cipation for the whole State, practically appHes the 
proclamation to the part previously excepted. It 
does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it 
is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the 
admission of members to Congress. So that, as it 
applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet 
fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- 
gress, and I received many commendations of the plan, 
written and verbal, and not a single objection to it 
from any professed emancipationist came to my knowl- 
edge until after the news reached Washington that 
the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accord- 
ance with it. From about July, 1862, I had corre- 
sponded with different persons supposed to be interested 
in seeking a reconstruction of a State government for 
Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan 
before mentioned, reached New Orleans, General 
Banks wrote me that he was confident that the people, 
with his military cooperation, would reconstruct sub- 
stantially, on that plan. I wrote to him and some of 



LINCOLN'S LAST ADDRESS 117 

them to try it. They tried it, and the result is known. 
Such has been my only agency in getting up the Louisi- 
ana government. 

As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 
stated. But as bad promises are better broken than 
kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it 
whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is ad- 
verse to the pubhc interest; but I have not yet been 
so convinced. I have been shown a letter on this 
subject, supposed to be an able one, m which the 
writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed 
to be definitely fixed on the question whether the 
seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. 
It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were 
he to learn that since I have found professed Union 
men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- 
posely forborne any public expression upon it. As 
appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet 
is, a practically material one, and that any discussion 
of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, 
could have no effect other than the mischievous one 
of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may 
hereafter become, that question is bad as the basis 
of a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a 
merely pernicious abstraction. 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Union, 
and that the sole object of the government, civil and 
military, in regard to those States is to again get them 
into that proper practical relation. I believe that it 
is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this with- 
out deciding or even considering whether these States 



118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding 
themselves safely at home, it would be utterly im- 
material whether they had ever been abroad. Let us 
all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the 
proper practical relations between these States and the 
Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his 
own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the 
States from without into the Union, or only gave them 
proper assistance, they never having been out of it. 
The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the 
new Louisiana government rests would be more satis- 
factory to all if it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 
20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it does. It is 
also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise 
is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer 
that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and 
on those who serve our cause as soldiers. 

Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana 
government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. 
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and 
help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can 
Louisiana be brought into proper practical relations 
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding 
her new State government? Some twelve thousand 
voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have 
sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the 
rightful political power of the State, held elections, 
organized a State government, adopted a free-State 
constitution, giving the benefit of pubUc schools equally 
to black and white, and empowering the legislature to 
confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. 
Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- 



LINCOLN'S LAST ADDRESS 119 

stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, 
abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union 
and to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to 
the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation 
wants — and they ask the nation's recognition and its 
assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say 
to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we 
will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the 
blacks we say: This cup of Hberty which these, your 
old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, 
and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled 
and scattered contents in some vague and undefined 
when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging 
and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency 
to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with 
the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, 
on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new 
government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is 
made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the 
arms of the 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue 
for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feel it, 
and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The 
colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is in- 
spired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the 
same end. Grant that he desires the elective franchise, 
will he not attain it sooner by saving the already ad- 
vanced steps toward it than by running backward over 
them? Concede that the new government of Louisiana 
is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl. 



120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than 
by smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one 
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- 
tional Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has 
been argued that no more than three fourths of those 
States which have not attempted secession are neces- 
sary to vaUdly ratify the amendment. I do not com- 
mit myself against this further than to say that such 
a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be 
persistently questioned, while a ratification by three 
fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 
unquestionable. I repeat the question: Can Louisi- 
ana be brought into proper practical relation with the 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government? What has been said of Louisi- 
ana will apply generally to other States. And yet so 
great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such im- 
portant and sudden changes occur in the same State, 
and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole 
case that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely 
be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- 
clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new 
entanglement. Important principles may and must 
be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase 
goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- 
ment to the people of the South. I am considering, 
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will 
be proper. 



EXTRACT FROM COLONEL ROBERT G. 
INGERSOLL'S EULOGY ON LINCOLN 

From "Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln" 
Used by Permission of The North American Review 

Strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic 
and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Ra- 
belais, of iEsop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is 
gentle and jjast, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, 
laughable, lovable, and divine, and all consecrated to 
the use of man; while through all, and over all, an over- 
whelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to 
truth, and upon all the shadow of the tragic end. 

Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible 
monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny 
deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or 
nothing but their peculiarities. About the roots of 
these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity. 
Washington is now only a steel engravmg. About the 
real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed 
we laiow but little. The glass through which we look 
at him is of such high magnifying pov/er that the fea- 
tures are exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people 
are now engaged in smoothing out the hues of Lincoln's 
face — forcmg all features to the common mold — so that 
he may be known, not as he really was, but, according 
to their poor standard, as he should have been. 

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone — no an- 
cestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, 
of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his 
future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his 
individuality and his self-respect. He knew and 
mingled with men of every kind ; and, after all, men are 
the best books. He became acquainted with the ambi- 
tions and hopes of the heart, the means used to 
accomplish ends, the springs of action and the 
seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, 
with actual things, with common facts. He loved and 
appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the 
seasons. 

In a new country, a man m_ust possess at least three 
virtues — honesty, courage, and generosity. In culti- 
vated society, cultivation is often more important than 
soil. A well executed counterfeit passes more readily 
than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe 
the unwritten laws of society — to be honest enough 
to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe 
in public — where the subscription can be defended as 
an investment. In a new country, character is essential; 
in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they 
find what a man really is; in the old, he generally 
passes for what he resembles. People separated only 
by distance are much nearer together than those 
divided by the walls of caste. 

It is no advantage to live in a great city, where 
poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The 
fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great 
forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more 
poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the country is 
the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting 



INGERSOLL'S EULOGY ON LINCOLN 123 

sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. 
The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain 
on the roof and listen to the rythmic sighing of the 
winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called 
Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn, the grace 
and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a land- 
scape; every landscape, a poem; every flower, a tender 
thought; and every forest, a fairy-land. In the country 
you preserve your identity — your personality. There 
you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you 
are only an atom of an aggregation. 

Lincoln never finished his education. To the night 
of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a 
seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many 
m.en are spoiled by what is called education. For the 
most part, colleges are places where pebbles are poHshed 
and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had grad- 
uated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling 
attorney or a hyi^ocritical parson. 

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with 
smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, 
direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave 
the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid 
to ask — never too dignified to admit that he did not 
laiow. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He 
was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by igno- 
rance and hypocrisy — it is the preface, prologue, and 
index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural 
in his hfe and thought — master of the story-teller's 
art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal 
in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, usmg any 
word that wit could disinfect. 



124 ABPtAPIAAI LINCOLN 

He was a logician. Logic is the necessary product of 
intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It 
is the child of a clear head and a good heart. He was 
candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. 
He had intellect without arrogance, genius without 
pride, and religion without cant — that is to say, v/ith- 
out bigotry and without deceit. 

He was an orator — clear, sincere, natural. He did 
not pretend. He did not say what he thought others 
thought, but what he thought. If you wish to be sub- 
lime you must be natural — you must keep close to 
the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; 
above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in 
your speech ; too much pohsh suggests insincerity. The 
great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, 
makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the 
gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures 
perfect in form and color, brmgs to light the gold 
hoarded by mem^ory, the miser — shows the glittering 
coin to the spendthrift, hope — enriches the brain, 
ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Be- 
tween his lips, words bud and blossom. 

If you wish to know the difference between an orator 
and an elocutionist — between what is felt and what is 
said — between what the heart and brain can do to- 
gether and what the brain can do alone — read Lin- 
coln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the 
speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will 
never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead 
and lips are dust. The speech of Everett will never be 
read. The elocutionists beheve in the virtue of voice, the 
sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and 



INGERSOLL'S EULOGY ON LINCOLN 125 

the genius of gesture. The orator loves the real, the 
siraple, the natural. He places the thought above all. 
He laiows that the greatest ideas should be expressed 
in the shortest words — that the greatest statues need 
the least drapery. 

Lincoln was an immense personality — firm but not 
obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism — firmness, heroism. 
He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; 
and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, 
unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for 
that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apol- 
ogize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful 
things as stealthily as others committed crimes. Al- 
most ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest 
words and deeds v/ith that charming confusion — 
awkwardness — that is the perfect grace of modesty. As 
a nobleman, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor 
neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and 
asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either 
of making a display of wealth or a pretense of payment, 
so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, 
even to the best he knew. 

A great man stooping, not wishing to make his 
fellows feel that they were small or mean. 

He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with 
himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything 
for principle; nothing for money, but everything for 
independence. Where no principle was involved, 
easily swayed — willing to go slowly, if in the right 
direction — sometimes wilHng to stop, but he would 
not go back, and he would not go wrong. He was 
willing to wait. He knew that the event was not 



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He 
knew that slavery had defenders, but no defense, and 
that they who attack the right must wound themselves. 
He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt 
nor scorned. With him, men were neither great nor 
small, — they were right or wrong. Through manners, 
clothes, titles, rags, and race he saw the real — that 
which is. Beyond accident, pohcy, compromise, and 
war he saw the end. He was patient as Destiny, 
whose undecipherable hieroglyphics were so deeply 
graven on his sad and tragic face. 

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. 
It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can 
bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man 
really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. 
It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute 
power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy. 

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe this 
divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the 
fear of domg wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the 
master — seeking to conquer, not persons, but pre- 
judices — he was the embodiment of the self-denial, 
the courage, the hope, and the nobihty of a nation. He 
spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. 
He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. 
He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy 
on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued 
from death. 

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil 
war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. 



EXTRACT FROM HON. HENRY WATTERSON'S 
LECTURE ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Used by Permission of the Publishers 
Messrs. Duffield & Co. 

Amid the noise and confusion, the clashing of in- 
tellects like sabers bright, and the booming of the big 
oratorical guns of the North and the South, now defin- 
itely arrayed, there came one day into the Northern 
camp one of the oddest figures imaginable; the figure 
of a man who, in spite of an appearance somewhat at 
outs with Hogarth's line of beauty, wore a serious as- 
pect, if not an air of command, and, pausing to utter a 
single sentence that might be heard above the din, 
passed on and for a moment disappeared. The sentence 
was pregnant with meaning. The man bore a com- 
mission from God on high! He said: " A house divided 
against itself cannot stand. I believe this government 
cannot endure permanently half free and half slave. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not 
expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease 
to be divided." He was Abraham Lincoln. 

How shall I describe him to you? Shall I do so as he 
appeared to me, when I first saw him immediately on 
his arrival in the national capital, the chosen President 
of the United States, his appearance quite as strange 
as the story of his life, which was then but half known 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and half told, or shall I use the words of another and 
a more graphic word-painter? 

In January, 1861, Colonel A. K, McClure, of Penn- 
sylvania, journeyed to Springfield, Illinois, to meet and 
confer with the man he had done so much to elect, but 
whom he had never personally known. ''I went di- 
rectly from the depot to Lincoln's house, " says Colonel 
McClure, " and rang the bell, which was answered by 
Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether I 
wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. 
Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill-clad, with a homeliness of 
manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my 
heart sank within me as I remembered that this was 
the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler 
in the gravest period of its history. I remember his 
dress as if it were but yesterday — snuff-colored and 
slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few 
brass buttons; straight or evening dress-coat, with 
tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, 
all supplemented by an awkardness that was uncommon 
among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I 
met in the person of Abraham Lincoln We sat down 
in his plainly furnished parlor and were uninterrupted 
during the nearly four hours I remained with him, and 
little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity, and candor 
were developed in conversation, I forgot all the grotesque 
qualities which so confounded me when I first greeted 
him. Before half an hour had passed I learned not only 
to respect, but, indeed, to reverence the man." 

A graphic portrait, truly, and not unlike. I recall 
him, two months later, a little less uncouth, a httle 
better dressed, but in singularity and in angularity 



HENRY WATTERSON'S TRIBUTE 129 

much the same. All the world now takes an interest 
in every detail that concerned him, or that relates to 
the weird tragedy of his life and death. 

And who was this peculiar being, destined in his 
mother's arms — for cradle he had none — so pro- 
foundly to affect the future of human-kind? He has 
told us, himself, in words so simple and unaffected, so 
idiomatic and direct, that we can neither misread them 
nor improve upon them. Writing, in 1859, to one who 
had asked him for some biographic particulars, Abraham 
Lincoln said : — 

''I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
undistinguished families — second families, perhaps 
I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, 
was of a family of the name of Hanks .... My pater- 
nal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from 
Rockingham county, Virginia, to Kentucky about 
1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed 
by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when 
he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. 

''My father (Thomas Lincoln) at the death of his 
father was but six years of age. By the early death of 
his father, and the very narrow circumstances of his 
mother, he was, even in childhood, a wandering, labor- 
ing boy, and grew up hterally without education. He 
never did more in the way of writing than bunglingly 
to write his own name. . . . He removed from Ken- 
tucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my 
eighth year. ... It was a wild region, with many bears 
and other animals still in the woods. . . . There were 
some schools, so-called, but no quahfication was ever 



130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

required of a teacher beyond 'readin, writin, and ci- 
pherin to the rule of three. ' If a straggler supposed to 
understand Latin happened to "sojourn in the neighbor- 
hood he was looked upon as a wizard. ... Of course, 
when I came of age I did not know much. Still, some- 
how, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three. 
But that was all. . . . The little advance I now have 
upon this store of education I have picked up from 
time to time under the pressure of necessity. 

" I was raised to farm work . . . till I v/as twenty- 
two. At twenty-one I came to Ilhnois, — Macon 
county. Then I got to New Salem, . . . where I 
remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then 
came the Black Hawk war; and I was elected captain 
of a volunteer company, a success that gave me more 
pleasure than any I have had since. I went into the 
campaign — was elated — ran for the Legislature the 
same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I 
ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and 
three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to 
the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. 
During the legislative period I had studied law and 
removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was 
elected to the lower house of Congress. Was not a 
candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, inclusive, 
I practiced law more assiduously than ever before. 
Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig 
electoral tickets, making active canvasses, I was losing 
interest in poHtics when the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise aroused me again. 

"If any personal description of me is thought desir- 
able, it may be said that I am in height six feet four 



HENRY WATTERSON'S TRIBUTE 131 

inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average 
one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, 
with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks 
or brands recollected." 

There is the whole story, told by himself, and brought 
down to the point where he becomes a figure of national 
importance. 

His pohtical philosophy was expounded in four elabo- 
rate speeches: one delivered at Peoria, Hhnois, 
October 16, 1854; one at Springfield, Illinois, June 
16, 1858; one at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 
1859, and one February 27, 1860, at Cooper Institute, 
in the city of New York. Of course Mr. Lincoln 
made many speeches and very good speeches. But 
these four, progressive in character, contain the sum 
total of his creed touching the organic character of 
the Government and at the same time his party view 
of contemporary issues. They show him to have been 
an old-line Whig of the school of Henry Clay, with 
strong emancipation leanings; a thorough anti-slavery 
man, but never an extremist or an abolitionist. To 
the last he hewed to the fine thus laid down. . . . 

What was the mysterious power of this mysterious 
man, and whence? 

His was the genius of common sense; of common 
sense in action; of common sense in thought; of 
common sense enriched by experience and unhindered 
by fear. ''He was a common man, '^ says his friend 
Joshua Speed, "expanded into giant proportions; well 
acquainted with the people, he placed his hand on the 
beating pulse of the nation, judged of its disease, and 
was ready with a remedy. " Inspired he was truly, as 



132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Shakespeare was inspired; as Mozart was inspired; 
as Burns was inspired; each, hke him, sprung directly 
from the people. 

I look into the crystal globe that, slowly turning, 
tells the story of his life, and I see a httle heart-broken 
boy, weeping by the outstretched form of a dead mother, 
then bravely, nobly trudging a hundred miles to obtain 
her Christian burial. I see this motherless lad growing 
to manhood amid the scenes that seem to lead to noth- 
ing but abasement; no teachers; no books; no chart, 
except his own untutored mind; no compass, except 
his own undisciphned will; no light, save light from 
Heaven; yet, hke the caravel of Columbus, struggling 
on and on through the trough of the sea, always toward 
the destined land. I see the full-grown man, stalwart 
and brave, an athlete in activity of movement and 
strength of limb, yet vexed by weird dreams and visions; 
of hfe, of love, of reUgion, sometimes verging on despair. 
I see the mind, grown as robust as the body, throw off 
these phantoms of the imagination and give itself 
wholly to the work-a-day uses of the world; the rearing 
of children; the earning of bread; the multiphed duties 
of life. I see the party leader, self-confident in conscious 
rectitude; original, because it was not his nature to 
follow; potent, because he was fearless, pursuing his 
convictions with earnest zeal, and urging them upon 
his fellows with the resources of an oratory w^hich was 
hardly more impressive than it was many-sided. I 
see him, the preferred among his fellows, ascend the 
eminence reserved for him, and him alone of all the 
statesmen of the time, amid the derision of opponents 
and the distrust of supporters, yet unawed and unmoved, 



HENRY WATTERSON'S TRIBUTE 133 

because thoroughly equipped to meet the emergency. 
The same being, from first to last; the poor child 
weeping over a dead mother; the great chief sobbing 
amid the cruel horrors of war ; flinching not from duty, 
nor changing his life-long ways of dealing with the 
stern realities which pressed upon him and hurried him 
onward. And, last scene of all, that ends this strange, 
eventful history, I see him lying dead there in the capi- 
tol of the nation, to which he had rendered " the 
last, full measure of his devotion," the flag of his 
country around him, the world in mourning, and, ask- 
ing myself how could any man have hated that man, 
I ask you, how can any man refuse his homage to his 
memory? Surely, he was one of God's elect; not in 
any sense a creature of circumstance or accident. Re- 
curring to the doctrine of inspiration, I say again 
and again, he was inspired of God, and I cannot see 
how any one who believes in that doctrine can regard 
him as anything else. 



EXTRACT FROM BISHOP FOWLER'S LECTURE 
ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Used by Permission of the Publishers 
Messrs. Eaton and Mains 

Mr. Lincoln was great as a speaker. As a speaker 
he stands at the forefront, with no man of record in 
advance of him. He was about half-way between the 
rounded periods of Daniel Webster and the crisp, 
sharp utterances of modern newspaper editorials. 

As a stump speaker he was by all odds the greatest 
the world ever saw. He could put the extinguisher on 
an antagonist in thirty-one seconds. Talking, over 
in Illinois, with a lawj^er, who had great prodigality 
of language and great parsimony of truth, Mr. Lincoln 
answered him by saying: " Gentlemen of the jury, you 
must not blame this man for what has been going on. 
He knows nothing about it. He is just Hke a little 
steamboat that used to go snorting and cavorting up 
and down the Sangamon River. It had a boiler five 
feet long and a whistle twelve feet long. Every time 
it whistled it stopped. So it is with this gentleman. 
He seems to be a man of integrity when he keeps his 
mouth shut, but when he opens his mouth he shuts 
his intellect. He knows nothing of what has been going 
on. You must not blame him." Mr. Lincoln was the 
perfect master of all the tricks of the stump speaker. 
But in his great speeches, upon which his fame safely 
rests, there is not the shghtest indication of this ability. 



BISHOP FOWLER'S TRIBUTE 135 

There are traditions among the old lawyers and politi- 
cal leaders of Illinois of occasional deliverances that were 
resistless in their power and overwhelming in their 
effects. He went to the meeting in Bloomington, Illi- 
nois, May 29, 1858, where the Repubhcan Party of 
Illinois was organized. His friends besought him not 
to waste himself. They followed him into the coach 
and pleaded with him. It did not avail. He was under 
the orders of a soHd moral conviction. He believed he 
had come to the parting of the ways. With the spirit of 
a martyr he followed duty. He went, and his speech 
was above description. At one time he appealed to the 
friends of Henry Clay and warned them against the 
insincerity of men chngmg to dead issues, who tried to 
resuscitate their political corpse by casting it into the 
grave of Clay, that his bones might galvanize it into 
life. So powerful were his paragraphs that the audience, 
lawyers, judges, politicians, the entire audience in tears, 
shouting their approval, sprang to their feet and upon the 
seats and desks, lifted by the spell of the great soul that 
swayed and swept everything before him. An old 
judge of highest character, who was present, told me 
of this years after. He said, ^' I never heard such speak- 
ing before. I shall never hear it again. I found myself 
standing on the top of my desk lifted by the moral and 
heroic subhmity of his utterances. He seemed to 
embody all the great issues of the coming conflict, and 
with the devotion of a martyr he put the conviction 
upon us. I could not sleep that night. I walked my 
room till morning." 

His first great speech of record was at the State Fair, 
in Springville, Illinois, October 4, 1854. Douglas had 



136 ' ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

just returned from Washington after the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise was 
enacted in 1820, consecrating the Territories to freedom. 
Douglas had secured its repeal, opening the Territories 
to slavery. He came home to make his peace with an 
irritated constituency. Mr. Douglas was a great de- 
bater. I have heard him debate by the half day. He 
said things that I knew were out of harmony with the 
facts, yet he would state them with such a show of 
logic and such a display of conviction that he would 
make you believe them almost in spite of yourself. He 
was a great debater. I think Mr. Douglas was the 
greatest man in the great Democratic Party of that 
time. For three hours he pounded away at his defense. 
When he had finished the crowd called out Mr. Lincoln, 
who was present. Mr. Lincohi answered him. Hern- 
don, Lincoln's old law partner, says, ''Mr. Lincoln 
demonstrated that he had not lounged about the 
libraries of the Capitol in vain. It was not the old 
Lincoln, the pride and pet of Sangamon County. It 
was a newer and greater Lincoln, that no man there 
had ever seen or heard, but seeing and hearing could 
never forget. " Herndon says, " The Nebraska Bill 
and Mr. Douglas's argument were shivered Hke an 
oak by a thunderbolt, torn and rent by hot bolts of 
truths." Mr. Douglas was utterly discomfited, and 
made but brief and feeble reply. From that day Mr. 
Lincoln was the great speaker, debater, orator, upon 
whom the new party relied and to whom all eyes turned 
for monumental occasions. 

Where will you find a more telling speech than his 
great speech of June, 1858, loiown as the ''House 



BISHOP FOWLER'S TRIBUTE 137 

Divided Against Itself " speech? He startled the nation 
with that ringing prophecy, ''I believe this government 
cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.'' 

It was trite in the sixties to praise the Lincoln- 
Douglas debate of 1858. It was the meeting of two 
seas, the sea of the dark ages and the sea of the new 
ages. It was the conflict of two great civihzations, 
the civilization of caste and aristocracy founded on 
wrong and on human slavery, and the civilization of 
manhood and freedom founded on the discovery of the 
individual man. The champions were the greatest 
debaters and platform speakers two systems had pro- 
duced, the Rail-Splitter, Lincoln, and the Little Giant, 
Douglas. It is above comparison with any political 
debate known to history in the systems they repre- 
sented, in the champions pushed to the front, in the 
principles underlying the contest, in the ability with 
which it was conducted, and in the consequences flow- 
ing out of it. Mr. Lincoln's triumphs in this great en- 
counter, even had he rendered no other service to his 
age, would have secured to him imperishable honors 
at the judgment bar of mankind, and would have 
justified his living at the judgment bar of God. 

Perhaps his greatest and most decisive speech was 
his Cooper Institute speech of February 27, 1860. He 
was in a new field, surrounded by the chieftains of the 
coming party. There sat William H. Seward, with a 
nose hke a Mohawk warrior; there sat Horace Greeley, 
with his old white hat; there in the chair sat Thurlow. 
Weed, the greatest Roman of them all. It was the 
one opportunity of a lifetime, and Mr. Lincoln was 
equal to it. He rose to the occasion, as he always did. 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

There were none of the arts of the stump speaker. It 
was a great, statesmanhke handling of the nation's 
life. It was Hke a plea before the Supreme Court. It 
candidly embodied all the facts of the situation in 
simple Saxon. It lifted the new party above the 
misrepresentation of its adversaries and joined it indis- 
solubly with the principles and administration of Wash- 
ington. It opened a consistent, easy way for every 
patriot to come to its support. It abused no one. It 
dealt with principles. For two hours that audience 
smiled, approved, cheered, gave themselves to the new 
party and their hearts to the new speaker. Nearly all 
the great daihes printed it in full. The Tribune said, 
"No man ever before made such an impression on his 
first appeal to a New York audience." It was struck 
off as a campaign document. They appointed a com- 
mittee of scholars to test its accuracy. The committee 
declared ''as almost incredible the accuracy of his 
statements and the wide extent of his knowledge." 
From the first line to the last he travels with a swift 
unerring directness, which no logician ever excelled. 
This speech crystallized the issues floating in the public 
mind, typed the. Union Party, furnished it with a 
platform and candidate, gave it victory at the polls, 
a spirit and an administration for four years of terror 
and struggle for national existence. Measured by the 
severest tests of a great speech, by the use of simple 
Saxon, by the beauty of it5 rhetoric, by the grip of its 
logic, by the breadth of its historical illustrations, by 
the range of its research, by its freedom from scholastic 
pretensions, by its brotherly, concihatory, yet un- 
flinching treatment of its adversaries, by its wise ad- 



BISHOP FOWLER'S TRIBUTE 139 

monitions to its friends, by its manly avowal of the 
power of the right, by its reverential acknowledgement 
of God, by the vast results it achieved — by all these 
great elements that make a great speech, it is equal to 
any speech recorded in any language. There is but one 
speech of record worthy to be placed by the side of it, 
and that is Daniel Webster's greatest speech, his reply 
to Hayne, of South Carolina. 

I do not wonder that the Professor of Rhetoric of 
New York College followed him night after night and 
from place to place, that he might lecture on the great- 
est speeches he ever heard, and discover if possible 
the secret of this great power. 

If anything more is needed to give Mr. Lincoln a 
place with the greatest speakers, then take that match- 
less speech at Gettysburg, which will live as long as 
the English language. The most pohshed orator of 
New England, Edward Everett, with months of prep- 
aration and the nation's dead around him for inspira- 
tion, delivered one of his greatest orations for two 
hours. When he had ended Mr. Lincoln delivered that 
brief speech, and when he had ended Mr. Everett ran 
up to him in great excitement and said, "I would gladly 
give you my two hours for your twenty sentences"; 
and well he might, for those twenty sentences would 
carry him as a matchless orator for twenty centuries. 
All men will feel the deep thrill of the simple justice of 
his words: "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, 
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far 
above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say here, 



140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

but it can never forget what they did here. It is for 
us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the un- 
finished work, that these dead shall not have died in 
vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new 
birth of freedom; and that government of the people, 
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth." None but the clearest and greatest mind 
could have projected such utterances. They would 
hardly shock us as a part of the Sermon on the Mount. 
It touched the heart of the nation like the benediction 
after prayer. The University of London, seeking 
specimens of perfect EngHsh to be studied by her 
pupils, has taken from this side of the Atlantic but one 
specimen, and that is Mr. Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. 
Mr. Lincoln was great as a speaker. 



NOTES 



Speech at Peoria, III., Oct. 16, 1854 

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Alexander Pope 
(1688-1744), " Essay on Criticism." 

American Republicanism. The paragraph ending with these 
words touched the very marrow of the matter and revealed to 
the great audience the iniquity of "popular sovereignty" and 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. 

These same men passed the Ordinance of '87. The Ordinance 
of 1787 providing for the government of the Northwest Terri- 
tory, which comprised the present states of Ohio, Illinois, 
Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, was passed by the Con- 
gress of the Confederation in its dying days. It was chiefly 
the work of Edward Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of 
Virginia, and Nathan Dane of Massachusetts. The instrument 
provided that the Territory should ultimately be divided into 
states, not exceeding five in number, and prescribed certain prin- 
ciples to which the future states must make their laws conform. 
The most significant provision of the Ordinance was the clause 
declaring that " there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment 
of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." 
The exclusion of slavery from the territories had been unsuccess- 
fully advocated by Jefferson in the ordinance reported by him to 
the Congress in 1784. Compare with Cooper Institute Speech. 

Slave States are the places for the poor white people to remove 
from. Slavery was responsible for the existence in the South 
of the class known as '' poor whites," of which Lincoln's family 
were members. By dividing southern society into two classes, 
ruling and servile, slavery created a third class for which there 
was no place in the economic or social structure of the South. 
Because he was a free man the " poor white " was too proud to do 
the work of the slave; and because all the work was performed 
by slave labor there was nothing for the " poor white " to do. 
Devoid of industry and energy, he subsisted partly by charity 
and partly by cultivating small patches of ground. The '' poor 



142 NOTES 

white " was despised by both master and slave. Read Charles 
Egbert Craddock's "Down in the Ravine," and John Fox, Jr's. 
" The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." 

Five slaves are counted equal to three whites. This was one 
of the necessary compromises of the Constitution. " The evil 
consequences were unquestionably very serious indeed. Hence- 
forth as long as slavery lasted the vote of a southerner counted 
for more than the vote of a northerner; and just where negroes 
were most numerous the power of their masters became greatest." 
" The Critical Period of American History," John Fiske, pp. 261- 
267. 

The Great Behemoth of Danger. Job xl, 15. 

It hath no relish of salvation in it. Hamlet, Act iii, Scene iii. 
Lincoln makes an allusion instead of giving an exact quotation. 



Speech at Springfield, III., June 16, 1858 

A House Divided. Mark iii, 25. This opening paragraph 
was considered exceedingly radical both by Lincoln's friends and 
his foes. In defending this part of his speech, Lincoln said, 
" The proposition is true and has been for six thousand years. I 
w^ant to use some universally known figure expressed in simple 
language that will strike home to the minds of men in order to 
raise them up to the peril of the issues." 

James G. Blaine said, "Abraham Lincoln did not say a tiling 
merely for the day's debate ; he said the thing that would stand 
the test of time, and square itself with eternal justice." 
I Compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott 
decision. According to the Nebraska doctrine when a territory 
became a state its people could decide whether it should be free 
or slave; according to the Dred Scott decision neither Congress 
nor the people of a territory could prohibit slavery within the 
territorial borders. Lincoln claimed that this gave slavery a 
chance to develop within the territory and thus insured the slave 
territory for a slave state. 

The New Year of 1854 found slavery excluded. At this time 
the laws of fifteen states legalized slaverj% while it was prohibited 
in sixteen states. By the provisions of the Missouri Compromise 
slavery was excluded from that part of the country north of 36° 
30', with the exception of Missouri. 

This opened all the national territory. The Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill. 



NOTES 143 

Down they voted the amendment. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, 
whom Lincoln later appointed Secretary of the Treasury and 
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, offered an 
amendment to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill which exphcitly de- 
clared that the people of a territory could prohibit slavery within 
their borders. See Lincoln's Freeport speech in the Lincoln- 
Douglas debates. 

Mr. Buchanan was elected. Buchanan received 1,838,169 
votes; Fremont, 1,341,204; Fillmore, 874,534. 

The outgoing President in his last annual message. " The 
purpose and scope of the (Dred Scott) decision was undoubtedly 
known to President Pierce before the end of his term, and Presi- 
dent Buchanan imprudently announced in his inaugural address 
that the point of time when the people of a territory can decide 
for themselves will be speedily and finally settled by the Supreme 
Court." Blaine's " Twenty Years in Congress," vol. i, page 132. 

The Silliman Letter. A number of citizens of Connecticut, 
headed by Professor Silliman of Yale, wrote a letter to President 
Buchanan in regard to certain phases of the Kansas question. 
In his reply Buchanan said that according to the Dred Scott 
decision slavery legally existed in the Territory of Kansas. 

The Lecomptcn Constitution. A pro-slavery constitution 
under which Buchanan desired to have Kansas admitted to the 
Union. Douglas opposed it on the ground that the majority 
of the people of the territory disapproved of the Lecompton 
Constitution. 

Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James. Lincoln declares that 
Douglas, Pierce, Taney, and Buchanan worked together to 
further the interests of the slave states. This charge was generally 
believed by the Republicans of the day, but historians do not 
now consider it well founded. This imputation recurred again 
and again during the Lincoln-Douglas del^ates. 

McLean or Curtis. Two judges of the Supreme Court who 
had dissented from the Dred Scott decision. 

A living dog is better than a dead lion. Ecclesiastes ix, 4. 



The Speech at Columbus, Sept. IC, 1859 

What is the Dred Scott decision? In the second joint debate 
with Douglas at Freeport, Lincoln answered a number of ques- 
tions which his opponent asked him, and also asked Douglas 
several exceedingly pointed questions, one of which was, " Can 



144 NOTES 

the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way . . . 
exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state 
constitution? " The question involved the irreconcilable differ- 
ence between the Northern and the Southern Democrats in their 
interpretation of the Kansas-Nebraska Law. To reply in the 
affirmative was to contradict the Dred Scott decision which he 
had defended. To answer in the negative was to repudiate his 
own doctrine of " squatter sovereignty." The httle giant skil- 
fully evaded the direct issue by saying that a territory could not 
prohibit slavery but that it could destroy it by unfriendly 
legislation. The answer leaned to the Northern view and denied 
to the South the full benefit of the Dred Scott decision, and it 
cost Douglas the support of the Southern Democrats in 1860. 
Lincoln in his speech at Columbus clearly shows the specious- 
ness of this argument. 

And if the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories . . . 
it also carries it into the States. In the debate at Galesburg, 
Oct. 7, 1858, Lincoln thus analyzes Douglas's argument: " Noth- 
ing in the Constitution or laws of any state can destroy a right 
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the 
United States. The right of property in a slave is distinctly 
and expressly allowed in the Constitution of the United States. 
Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any state can 
destroy the right of property in a slave." 

Will reopen the African slave trade. Lincoln argues that as 
the Dred Scott decision opens all of the states and territories to 
slavery, it makes impossible any legislation against the slave 
trade. The Compromise of 1850 abolished the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia. 

Ordinance of '87. See note on Peoria Speech, page 141. 

Jeff Davis and Stephens. Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. 
Stephens were subsequently elected President and Vice-President 
of the Confederacy. Davis had been a member of the Cabinet 
of Franklin Pierce and United States Senator from Mississippi. 
Stephens was a man of feeble health and diminutive stature but 
of great intellectual strength. Though opposed to secession, he 
followed his state. Read hig. speech against secession before 
the Georgia State Convention. Denny's " American Public 
Addresses," page 169. 

Contrary to general expectation in the North, the South after 
seceding did not reopen the African slave trade. The Con- 
federate Constitution, which Davis and Stephens assisted in 
framing, expressly forbade it. 



NOTES 145 



The Cooper Institute Speech, Feb. 27, 1S60 

Twelve subsequently framed amendments. The first ten 
amendments were practically a ''bill of rights"; the eleventh 
amendment, which made it unconstitutional for an individual to 
bring a suit in law or equity against the United States, was 
adopted in 1798; the twelfth, which had to do with the method 
of electing the President and Vice-President, was adopted in 1804. 

In 1784. Jefferson introduced in Congress an ordinance 
prohibiting slavery in the national domain north of the parallel 
31° after the year 1800; the motion failed of passage. 

In 1787. The Ordinance of 1787, passed by the Congress of 
the Confederation in its dying days, forbade " slavery or in- 
voluntary servitude except as a punishment for crime," in the 
Northwestern Territory, which comprised the present States 
of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ilhnois, Indiana, and Ohio. 

North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government — Ten- 
nessee. North Carohna made this cession with the under- 
standing that the Federal Government would not interfere with 
slavery in the ceded territory. An agreement of this Idnd indi- 
cated that the right of the national government to regulate 
slavery was recognized or at least apprehended. When Georgia 
ceded Mississippi and Alabama the deed of cession contained a 
similar provision. 

Corporal oath. An oath ratified by toucliing a sacred object, 
especially the New Testament, as distinguished from a merely 
spoken or written oath. 

John Brown. The raid of this intrepid fanatic upon Harper's 
Ferry and his ineffectual attempt to stir up a slave insurrection 
did much to inflame sectional animosity. 

Black Republicanism. Douglas used this phrase frequently 
during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, appealing to race prejudice 
and declaring that Lincoln was a radical abohtionist. 

The Southampton Insurrection. Sometimes referred to as 
Nat Turner's insurrection. It broke out at Southampton in 
1831; sixty white persons were murdered. 

The Slave revolution in Haiti. In 1791 Toussaint L'Ouverturo 
led a successful rebellion of the negroes against the French 
authority. 

The Gunpowder Plot. In 1604 a number of the opponents of 
the religious poUcy of the English Parliament plotted the destruc- 
tion of that body. Powder in large quantities was concealed 



146 NOTES 

in the cellar of the ParUament building, and November 5th was 
set as the fatal day. Before the time came one of the conspira- 
tors warned his brother-in-law, who was a member of the House 
of Lords, of the impending danger. The plot was discovered 
and the conspirators were executed. 

Pari passu, with equal pace. 
r 'Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon. In 1858 an attempt was 
made to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III. Fehce Orsini, 
the leader in the plot, made London his headquarters. He was 
tried and acquitted by an English jury. The French nation 
was disposed to condemn Great Britain for alleged neghgence. 

Helper's Book. " The Impending Crisis of the South," by 
H. R. Helper. The author was a Southerner who wrote from 
the standpoint of the " poor white," pointing out the economic 
and social evils arising from slavery. 

The Supreme Court has decided. Notice Lincoln's treatment 
of the Dred Scott decision. 

A policy of '' don't care." Douglas had remarked in a speech 
in the Senate in 1857 that he did not care whether slavery was 
voted up or voted down. During the debates Lincoln used this 
against him mth telling effect. 

Calling not the sinners. Matthew ix, 13. Lincoln was a 
profound student of the Bible and Shakespeare, to which fact 
is to be ascribed in great measure his superior hterary style. 



The First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 

Apprehension. When these words were uttered the representa- 
tives of the Gulf States were organizing the Confederate Govern- 
ment at Montgomery, Alabama. 

There is much controversy. The abolitionist element in the 
Repubhcan party was displeased with Lincoln's dehverance upon 
the subject of the fugitive slave law, which was a part of the 
" Omnibus Bill " or " Compromise of 1850." Daniel Webster 
had supported this measure in his famous " seventh of March 
speech " which cost him the hitherto idolatrous devotion of New 
England. 

The Union is much older than the Constitution. It is worth 
while to note the development of the idea of a union of states. 
The earliest colonial league in America was the New England 
Confederation of 1643, formed for protection against the Indians, 
the Dutch, and the French. In 1698 Wilham Penn proposed a 



NOTES 147 

union, but it never materialized. In 1754 a congress composed 
of delegates from seven colonies met at Albany for the purpose 
of renewing their aUiance with the Six Nations; to this body 
Franklin presented his famous plan for a permanent federal 
union. In 1765 nine colonies were represented in the Stamp 
Act Congress. During the years immediately preceding the 
Revolutionary War the Committee of Correspondence instituted 
by Samuel Adams did much to promote the spirit of co-operation. . 
In 1774 came the First Continental Congress and the Articles 
of Association which Lincoln mentions, followed by the Second 
Continental Congress in 1775, and the somewhat belated Articles 
of Confederation adopted three years later. It is important to 
bear in mind, however, that in these temporary unions there 
was no surrender of sovereignty by the individual colonies or 
states participating in them. 

No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the 
Union. The question of secession was first brought to the front 
by the New England states which participated in the Hartford 
Convention in 1814 and threatened to withdraw from the Union 
because they disapproved of the War with England w^hich had 
destroyed their commerce. It is only just to state that the right 
of secession was nowhere seriously questioned prior to 1860. 

The Union is unbroken. Lincoln held persistently to the 
theory that the Union was indestructible, and at the close of 
the war he was shaping his reconstruction policy in accordance 
with that view. 

The ills you fly from. See Hamlet, Act iii, Scene i. 
" Makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of ." 

It was proposed by those who were anxious to conciliate 
the South to make slavery perpetual by constitutional 
amendment. 

" Preserve, protect, and defend it." See Constitution of the 
United States, Art. 2, Sec. 1, 8. 

The Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 

The progress of our arms. The war was practically over. 
The Army of Northern Virginia was making its final stand at 
Petersburg, Sherman had marched " from Atlanta to the sea," 
and Sheridan had ravaged the Shenandoah, the last remaining 
Confederate granary. More efficient than armies or victories, 
the blockade had completed the prostration of the South. 



148 NOTES 

Insurgent agents. In March, 1861, two Confederate com- 
missioners came to Washington. Through Senator Hunter of 
Virginia they tried to secure an interview wdth Secretary Seward, 
who was at first inchned to receive them; later he wrote a note 
to Senator Hunter saying, " It will not be in my power to receive 
the gentlemen of whom we conversed yesterday." 

Judge not. Matthew vii, 1. 

Woe unto the world. Matthew xviii, 7. 

The judgments of the Lord. Psalm xix, 9. 



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